Kathmandu, November 10:

BSNL is planning to ban all the business activities of Chinese equipment supplier Huawei with it as it has derailed its project for providing 10.5 lakh CDMA connections. The company was earlier issued a show cause notice by BSNL. “We are considering action against Huawei,” said AK Sinha, CMD, BSNL.

This ban could come as a major setback for Huawei as it will not be able to bid for BSNL’s upcoming tender for 60m GSM lines, which will be the largest single tender in the world. Sugat R Kansakar, managing director of Nepal Telecom (NT), told The Himalayan Times that NT does not buy equipment from Huawei and therefore the latest row involving the company does not bother NT in any manner.

Huawei was the lowest bidder in the tender for installing a network of 10.5 lakh CDMA lines. It participated in the tender with two Indian companies HFCL and the government-owned SCL. When the companies fai-led to supply the equipment after accepting the advanced purchase order, BSNL asked for explanation from them.

“The Indian companies were able to establish that they could not supply the equipment as Huawei has failed to meet its commitment an-d refused to supply the equipment. Therefore, we sent show cause notice asking Huawei to explain why it should be b-anned from participating in all the future tenders of BSNL,” said Sinha. BSNL issued notice to HFCL asking it to explain why it should not be disallowed from participating in any CDMA infrastructure tender for one year.

“We received HFCL’s reply and are reconsidering action against the company in view of Huawei’s inability to supply the equipment,” said a BSNL official.