New Delhi :
Reliance Jio has alleged that tender norms mandating use of 2G technology for government funded mobile service projects will favour incumbent operators and cause financial loss of around Rs 5,000 crore to the public exchequer, according to sources.
The firm has also written letter to Universal Service Obligation Fund Administrator Sanjay Singh and marked it to telecom minister Manoj Sinha and telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan seeking their intervention for removing the clause.
“…We are hugely disappointed by USOF Administration’s decision to continue with extremely unfair, arbitrary, discriminatory, restrictive and retrograde mandate to use 2G technology for voice in its recent tender for Andaman and Nicobar Islands despite numerous reasons for not mandating a legacy technology,” Jio said in the letter dated June 25, 2018.
The DoT in June first week invited bids to install 214 mobile towers in Andaman and Nicobar islands (ANI) in uncovered villages and on national highways for providing 2G and 4G services.
