State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) today said it will look into allegations of irregularity in award of network equipment tender to US tech giant Cisco in 2014.
Reports said BSNL tender norms for procuring IP-MPLS equipment for the Network for Spectrum (NFS) project were allegedly tweaked to so that the Rs 2,000 crore contract went to US giant.
“Prima facie there is no substance to the allegations, but since the reports have come we will look into the matter once again. In the past also, these things have come up before I joined, and a proper reply on the subject has been given,” BSNL CMD Anupam Shrivastava told.
Cisco, in an emailed statement, said the company does not comment on customer relationships or internal processes.
“Cisco strives to maintain high standards of ethics and integrity across the company and around the world. These values are at the forefront of the way we do business every day. We expect our employees and partners to maintain the highest levels of ethical and responsible business practices at all times and we move quickly to investigate any issues or concerns,” it added.
The US-based company, however, did not clarify if it was undertaking any investigation in this particular matter.