POSSIBILITY OF ANOTHER BIG CORRUPTION IN TAMILNADU :-Companies dial DoT, state authorities to shelve Tanfinet initiative The companies in separate letters to DoT and state authorities in addition to anonymous complaints to the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) and the Prime Minister Office (PMO) during the April-May period alleged the wrongdoings, saying that the state had put up restrictive conditions, aimed to benefit only a handful of large firms. Muntazir AbbasETTelecomUpdated: June 06, 2020, 22:59 IST

NEW DELHI: The companies have called upon the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Tamil Nadu government to cancel the ambitious state-led BharatNet program following allegations of anomalies and corruption.

The multiple companies in separate letters to the telecom department and state authorities in addition to anonymous complaints to the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) and the Prime Minister Office (PMO) during the April-May period alleged the wrongdoings, saying that the state had put up "restrictive conditions" aimed to benefit only a handful of large firms.

"We were astonished to witness that how the erring officials have brazenly favored a few prospective bidders, totally demolishing the sanctity of the tender process," Paramount Wires & Cables, a Delhi-based optic-fibre maker in its letter dated April 24 said.

In a letter dated May 24 to Tanfinet managing director, a Mumbai-based company had sought clarifications and postponement of bids submissions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The controversy erupted after the Tamil Nadu Fibrenet Corporation Limited (Tanfinet) invited requests for proposals (RFP) under the BharatNet-II program to connect 12,525-gram panchayats or village blocks with the high-speed fibre-based network in December 2019.

Tanfinet divided the entire statewide Rs 2,000-crore worth project into four different packages and later issued a corrigendum to include stringent conditions that would eventually disqualify local firms, and discourage level-playing field.

However, the matter has come to light after a senior state official who opposed the changes in tender conditions, was transferred. Arappor Iyakkam, a local nonprofit organisation also wrote a letter to the state chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami in April, highlighting the irregularities.

The proposals were invited from those bidders who have a fibre production capacity of 1.25 lakh kilometres per annum and have the experience to supply at least 75,000 kilometres of cable to a government or private telecom service provider, that would virtually mean a cakewalk for a couple of large companies only.

Query to Tamil Nadu's IT department did not elicit any response.

Tanfinet has though extended bids submission date to June 12, following the nationwide lockdown in the wake of Coronavirus outbreak. August 2021 is the program's national deadline.

The Tamil Nadu's BharatNet initiative has already been a non-starter following the state's stiff resistance to Centre-driven national broadband initiative, initially awarded to RailTel, a communications arm of the Indian Railways.