Govt tweaks eligibility conditions for Kochi-Lakshadweep submarine cable project after Indian firms demand level playing field

Tourists go to Minicoy Island, Lakshadweep, in a boat (Image: sixpixx/Shutterstock)

The government has altered key eligibility conditions for one of its most ambitious projects of laying a 1900-km long submarine cable system between Kochi and Lakshadweep Islands. The move came after domestic telecom industry bodies had complained to the Telecom Ministry and the PMO that the eligibility conditions for the global tender did not give a level playing field to Indian companies.

The Rs 1072-crore project of BSNL, approved by Union Cabinet last December, involves laying a dedicated cable system using six fibre pair with 200 Gbps initial traffic capacity to connect all 11 islands of Lakshadweep. Presently, the only medium of providing telecom connectivity to Lakshadweep is through satellites, but the bandwidth available is limited to 1 Gbps.

A global tender to implement the project was invited in March but soon ran afoul of domestic companies that alleged that it was weighed in favour of international companies due to stiff eligibility conditions. The Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association (TEMA) and the PHD Chambers of Commerce then wrote letters to DoT and the PMO, saying this may result in a single foreign-bidder situation.

The Changes

Changes have now been made to the tender altering two key eligibility conditions. One, the requirement of cumulative turnover of last three financial years of a bidding company has been reduced from Rs 1,400 crore to Rs 600 crore. Another condition put earlier was that the bidding company or its parent/holding company should have executed at least two global submarine projects over the last 12 years, including one using “repeatered technology”, with each being at least 1,000 km in length with deployment depth of 3,000 metres.  This has now been changed to say at least two projects executed by the company of any technology should be of at least 1,000 km length but the deployment depth of the same has been changed to 2,000 metres.

The condition for having deployed submarine line repeaters and cable for “up to 500 km” remains the same as the earlier tender but the depth of deployment of the same has been changed now to 2,000 metres from 3000 metres requirement earlier. The condition of having experience of manufacturing at least 1,000 km of Repeatered submarine cable and 2,000 km of non-repeatered submarine cable during the last 12 years, also remains the same.

Domestic industry bodies' objection

Industry bodies had complained that the BSNL’s tender for the project was on similar lines as the earlier Chennai-Andaman Nicobar Islands Submarine Cable Project which was bagged by a Japanese consortium in a single bid. The Kochi-Lakshadweep project is supposed to be executed with one repeatered segment from Kochi to Minicoy and twelve non-repeatered segments to the other islands. The Indian industry bodies had objected to inclusion of repeatered technology in one of the segments of the project, saying the technology is available only with a few foreign companies. They also said the earlier conditions like three-year cumulative turnover of over Rs 1,400 crore and requirement of experience of deploying repeater cable for at 1,000 km at depth of 3,000 metres was restrictive in nature for the Indian companies.

The bid was floated in ‘Make in India’ preferential bidder category. The project would connect 11 islands of Lakshadweep - Androth, Amini, Kadmat, Kiltan, Chetlat, Bitra, Bangaram, Agatti, Kavaratiti, Kalpeni and Minicoy with a dedicated submarine cable.