PMO objects to MTNL-Motorola deal

MUMBAI: The Prime Minister's Office has raised concerns regarding purchase of GSM equipment by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, but the telecom PSU has maintained that it had made payments to vendor Motorola as per tender norms.

After receiving the PMO's observations on the issue, the Department of Telecom had asked MTNL to clarify whether there was any violation of payment clause linking payments to validation testing.

"We request MTNL to clarify whether in the tender, there was any clause regarding validation tests linking payments to the vendor and whether there was any violation of this clause," the DoT said in the letter.

The PSU, however, said there was no clause linking the payment to validation testing in the tender.

"Payments were released as per the payment plans in the tender document. And it was released from time-to-time as per the conditions in the purchase order with Motorola," said a top official.

MTNL had floated a global tender to purchase GSM equipments and signed an agreement with Motorola for the same.

The company gave Motorola an expansion order for 800,000 GSM lines.

Motorola has been awarded the business as a result of a public tender, which will increase the number of GSM lines by 400,000 each in Delhi and Mumbai.