Ministries and departments, including home ministry, PMO and NSC are yet to grant a meeting to Huawei executives.
As Chinese telecom equipment major Huawei waits on for an appointment with the top representatives of Indian government to resolve the security hurdle, environment minister Jairam Ramesh’s recent statement of the home ministry being “alarmist towards China” may have made things tougher for the telco.
Sources said China-based Huawei executives were set to arrive in India on Monday, but ministries and departments including the ministry of home affairs (MHA), prime minister’s office (PMO) and the National Security Council (NSC) are yet to grant a meeting to them. A source close to the development said the minister’s comment on India’s stand towards China was “needless” as it would only worsen matters.
The government is dishing out trade figures — of around $38 billion — to play down the controversy. But, it maintains that the government policy is to ensure security of the country. Telecom is among the sectors where Chinese companies have faced hurdles related to security issues for long.
The proposals from telcos for procurement of equipment/software from foreign companies are forwarded to MHA with copies to Research and Analysis Wing and Intelligence Bureau (IB). From the recent response of IB, it was clear that proposals for procurement of equipment from Chinese vendors have not been recommended due to security reasons, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) recently said in an internal note. “That is the reason why telcos’ proposals for buying Chinese equipment were rejected,” it pointed out.
DoT also told the PMO recenty that the matter relates to bilateral relationship with China. Chinese telecom equipment are said to be around 40% cheaper than American or European equipment.
That explains telecom service providers’ preference for Chinese equipment.
As for Chinese companies, Huawei and telecom equipment company ZTE are focusing on a localisation drive. ZTE is all set to launch its India Engineering Centre in Gurgaon this week.
An analyst that this newspaper spoke to said security was a tricky issue and that the roadblock was unlikely to get cleared soon.
“Technology changes so fast, and nobody really has a clear idea on what needs to be done to sort out the security problem,” he said.
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