Jio-Graphic Advantage: Indian Railways May Save Rs 30 Crore By Switching To Reliance Network

Reliance Jio Infocomm has come out as the lowest bidder in order to bag the Indian Railways’ telecom accounts, reports the Financial Express. Reliance has left behind Airtel and Vodafone by placing the lowest bid.

According to reports, the tender for the business- a three-year contract is seeing a four-way competition between Airtel, Jio, Vodafone-Idea Joint Venture and state-run BSNL. The PSU Railtel is currently reviewing papers and is looking to award to the contract to the lowest bidders if all conditions are fulfilled.

For the past six years, Airtel has been the sole telecom provider to the 3.78 lakh mobile phone collections used by a closed user group (CUG) of railway staff across the country. According to sources in the report, the government is paying Rs 100 crore under the current arrangement.

The bid for the contracts began earlier this month. The new prices offered by Jio cut the current cost incurred by 30 per cent, meaning that the government will be able to save approximately Rs 30 crore.

This time there are various revised conditions like providing 4G/3G instead of 2G/3G connections. All bidders have met this condition. Another requirement is offering of free calls which all bidders are offering. There is a requirement of four different monthly plans for various levels of employees. The Indian Railways provides mobile conditions to all their employees- senior officials, field employees, drivers, guards, station masters, gangmen and others.

The bidders have provided will four plans range between around Rs 120 and Rs 75 per month. The significant difference between them is the amount of data offered in each plan. The report said that while all bidders offered more or less the same upper limit of the plans, Reliance Jio’s was the cheapest.