Local companies, joint venture firms with local partners and foreign companies are eligible to participate in the bids, paying a non-refundable application fee of Tk 1 crore each.

Fee for each licence in the central zone -- Dhaka Multi Exchange Area -- consisting of Dhaka city, Zinzira, Savar, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Tongi -- will be Tk 15 crore and licence renewal fee Tk 1.2 crore annually.

A pre-bid meeting with the prospective bidders will be held on April 10. The last date for submitting the bids is May 8 and the BTRC will open those the same day at 12:30 pm.

The BTRC has so far granted 35 licences to 19 private sector public switched telecom network (PSTN) operators in the northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest zones. But it could not grant licences for the central zone due to legal battle with WorldTel.

WorldTel obtained a licence 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 co-exclusive right with Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) but it went to court when the telecoms regulator cancelled the right terming it anti-competitive and violative of Bangladesh Telecommunications Act, 2001.

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

The central zone accounts for about 60 per cent of the total demand for fixed phones in the country. The demand for fixed phones in the capital is estimated to be around 10 lakh while the registered demand with the BTTB is about two lakh, sources said.

The BTTB does not have the capability to meet the growing demand for land phones due to infrastructural inadequacy, the sources mentioned.