BSNL’s rural initiative towards rolling out passive infrastructure across the country witnessed six firms, namely ACME, GTL Infra, Spanco, Icomm, Aster and KEC emerge as the lowest bidders for different regions.

BSNL has divided the project into four regions of North, West, South and East. ACEM and GTL are in the race as lowest bidders for the Northern region while Icomm and Aster are lowest bidders in the Southern region. For the eastern region, KEC and ACME are the front runners while Spanco and GTL emerged as lowest bidders in West.

While the estimated value of the project is $ 1 billion the initiative will help cater to 93 million subscribers.

The bids are now subject to technical and financial scrutiny by BSNL. For each zone the two lowest bidders will be awarded the contract.

The project is part of BSNL’s mega GSM tender.