www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The state run telco, Bharat Sanchar Nigam ltd. is seeking bids from over 150 retail companies to sell its services. “After an evaluation of the expression of interests, agreements will be entered with the successful retail chain or with the lead partner of (a) consortium for a period of two years…” according to a bid document. Retail companies such as Vishal Retail Ltd., Essar Group’s The Mobile Store, Aksh Optifibre Ltd. and Happy E-zone Ltd. have submitted their bids, revealed to official from BSNL.

The criteria for the bidder is, it should have a minimum of 50 outlets operating in India with an annual turnover of INR500 million each year for the last two years, as per the document.
BSNL is striving hard to meet up with the contenders like Bharti Airtel Ltd., Vodafone-Essar Ltd. and Reliance Communications Ltd., which have been able to expand their subscriber base by reaching out to customers through retail outlets. The retail outlets will have to add a minimum of 20,000 new customers in the first year of operations, based on which BSNL will extend the contract by another year.