Irregularities in Info Sarker-3 project
Internet service providers yesterday raised specific allegations of irregularities in the awarding of an internet connectivity project involving Tk 378.46 crore to two private transmission network providers.
The Internet Service Providers Association Bangladesh came up with the allegations at a media briefing at the La Vinci hotel in Dhaka.
The association said the Bangladesh Computer Council has created duopoly in the internet industry, especially at the rural level, through its Info Sarker-3 Project.
“Subsequently, the end customers will have no option to reject their service,” said Imdadul Haque, general secretary of the ISPAB.
The project will connect 2,600 unions in 488 upazilas with optical fibre cable. Each upazila will get 40 gigabits per second of internet connectivity.
Irregularities took place in: the bid invitation, tender evaluation, suggestions for work order approval and determining the work area of the tender winning entities, said MA Hakim, president of the ISPAB.
The nationwide telecommunication transmission network operators Fiber@Home and Summit Communications have won the work order.
Fiber@Home became the lowest bidder for a tender package for 1,307 unions and Summit Communications for the other package for 1,293 unions.
However, the BCC, an entity of the ICT division, said it has followed due procedures and found no violation in the project.
Apart from setting up the transmission network, the work order also allows Fiber@Home and Summit Communications to provide internet service to the end users, which is in violation of the NTTN licensing conditions, Hakim said.
“There is no scope to create confusion as the ISPs will provide the last-mile internet service. The NTTN operators will not take their business,” said Abu Nasher, public relations officer of the ICT division.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council had approved the project by asking the concerned authorities to split the entire work into eight tenders.
But the steering committee of the project decided to limit the entire project to two packages upon influence from private NTTN operators, the ISPAB president said.
The tender was open to all five existing NTTN operators but only Fiber@Home and Summit Communications participated in the bidding.
The three government NTTN operators -- Power Grid Company of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd and Bangladesh Railway -- abstained, which raised questions, Hakim said.
The bids of the two NTTN operators suggest that they submitted their proposals based on mutual collaboration.
“The pattern of the bids suggests there was no competition among the entities. It was a clear violation of the public procurement act,” Hakim said.
The ISPAB leaders alleged that the two companies are charging high although the government will supply all the necessary equipment and the BCC will allocate about Tk 400 crore for maintaining the network.
Furthermore, the BCC has signed agreements with the two NTTN operators for 20 years although the validity of such licences is 15 years, and both the licences were issued in 2009.
Last week, the association wrote letters to the prime minister, the finance minister, the concerned parliamentary standing committee and the telecom regulator informing them about the irregularities.
Referring to the Telecommunication Act, the ISPAB said no one can establish a transmission network without a proper licence. The BCC cannot own the established networks as it has no NTTN licence. The BCC earlier implemented the Info Sarker-2 project for about Tk 1,300 crore, taking internet connectivity to upazila level. Fiber@Home and Summit Communications implemented the project as well.
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