The telecoms watchdog yesterday put off the bidding process of awarding four licenses to private companies for fixed-phone operation in the central (Dhaka) zone after the High Court (HC) on Sunday stayed the process for two months.

Telecoms experts and lawyers alleged the bid was designed to favour some specific companies, diminishing competition for the bid.

"BTRC's tender invitation was designed to favour some private companies that are operating in four other zones. It was discriminatory and a violation of telecoms act 2001," Barrister Shafiq Ahmed, one of the lawyers who represented the petitioner, told The Daily Star yesterday.

Khandakar Md Sabbir, an advocate, filed a writ petition challenging the criteria pertaining to the bidding.

According to sources, a total of 13 land-phone companies purchased bidding documents to get land-phone licenses for the central zone -- Dhaka Multi Exchange Area -- consisting of Dhaka city, Zinzira, Savar, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Tongi.

Yesterday was the last date for submission of the bidding. The telecom regulator was scheduled to open the tenders same day at 12.30pm. Some of representatives of these companies went to the BTRC office yesterday morning to drop their offers but found that the bidding process was deferred.

"The bidding process for fixed phone in the central zone is stayed until further notice due to some court proceedings," said a top BTRC official.

Police was deployed in front of the BTRC office in Gulshan to avoid any untoward incident. However, representatives of some telecoms operators left the BTRC premises following altercation with the security people.

The regulator invited offers on March 23. Out of 100, it allocated 16 marks for having fixed-phone licenses and 6 marks for commencement of operation in four zones, 24 marks for number of subscriber connections given, 3 marks for microwave backbone network and 4 marks each for base tower station and local exchanges and these number allocations favour some specific operators.

The telecom regulator has so far allocated 35 licenses to 19 private PSTN (public switched telephone network) operators in four zones -- northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest -- but could not grant licenses for Dhaka zone due to legal battle with WorldTel.

WorldTel, which obtained license in July 2001 to provide 3,00,000 land phones in Dhaka at an investment of about $300 million on a build-operate-own basis with four years of exclusive right, went to court after the telecom regulator cancelled its exclusive right terming it anti-competitive and a violation of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Act 2001.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on August 23 last year dismissed WorldTel's petition for retaining its four-year co-exclusive right with BTTB to provide landlines in Dhaka, paving the way for private land-phone companies to operate.

At least two million fixed telephone lines were expected to be introduced by private sector in the next three to four years, according to an estimate of state-run research body Infrastructure Investment Facilitation Center (IIFC).