New Delhi, Aug 26: The Indian Government on Saturday indicated that the telephone-on-demand target could become difficult to reach by March 2002 after a Madhya Pradesh High Court restrained the Department of Telecom (DOT) to finalise a tender agreement for supply of Polythene Insulated Jelly Filled (PIJF) cables and Optical Fibre Cables.
Communications Minister Ram Vilas Paswan in a message to the chief ministers and that due to a pending court case involving the Department of Telecom, there could be a delay in achieving the telecom, targets in the states.
The proposed expansion of the telecom network in the country is dependent on supply of Polythene Insulated Jelly Filled (PIJF) cables.
However this year, the tender for purchase of these cables were floated in January/February 2000. One of the affected vendors filed a case in Madhya Pradesh High Court, Jabalpur, which passed the stay orders and restrained the department of telecom from finalising the tender agreement, both for PIJF and Optical fibre.
Paswan said that the department had contested the case and requested the high court for vacation of the stay orders. The case was dismissed by the single bench judge on 4-8-2000 and advance purchase orders were issued on 9-8-2000. Meanwhile, the concerned vendor again filed a case on 9-8-2000. The case was heard on August 14th and 18th as a result of this ''the final purchase order could not be issued.''
—UNI
