Tamil Nadu Arasu Cable TV Corporation Ltd (TACTV) proposes to procure 60 lakh standard definition (SD) set-top boxes and 10 lakh high definition (HD) set top boxes for the rollout of Digital Addressable System (DAS) across Tamil Nadu and issued a global tender on Saturday.
Last month, the Centre granted the DAS licence to Arasu Cable. The tender for procurement of set-top boxes closes on May 29. The bids would be open on May 29 and a pre-bid meeting would be held on May 19, according to the tender document.
“The proposed TV services (300 channels to start and to be expanded to 500 ) will be in MPEG 4 Standard definition and 30 Television services in HD (MPEG4) and 20 FM Audio services with provision to add more SD & HD Channels in the near future,” according to the document.
It also said the system will ultimately aim to broadcast 500 TV channels, including 50 HD Channels and 20 FM Audio Channels. The initial subscriber base is expected to be over 7 million.
A TACTV senior official told The Hindu that the firm is looking to charge for 300 channels at a competitive price.
As per the AIADMK’s election manifesto, the set-top boxes are to given free to subscribers, but a final call will be taken by the Chief Minister, sources said.
According to the tender document, bidders could either be a single company or consortium of bidders (with maximum of three partners).
The single bidder should be a registered company in India and should be in the business of manufacturing set-top boxes for the past three years as on March 31, 2017. The bidder should have reported an average annual turnover of at least ₹100 crore in the last three consecutive financial years.
In case of consortium of bidders, one of the partners shall be designated as prime bidder (which shall be a registered firm in India and should be in existence for the past three years). Each partner of the consortium should be in existence for the past three years. The prime bidder should have reported an average annual turnover of at least ₹100 crore at least in last three financial years, while the set-top box manufacturing partner should have reported an annual turnover of at least ₹50 crore in last three financial years.
According to the document, the single bidder/ anyone of the consortium partner should have successfully completed supply of at least five lakh units of set-top boxes in any one of the last three financial years — that is — 2013-16 (or) 2014-17 — of which at least three lakh units should have been supplied and seeded in India.
Arasu Cable would procure the set-top boxes from the lowest bidder. Forty per cent of ordered quantity should be supplied within 30 days from the date of issue of purchase order and the remaining must be delivered in 60 days from the date of issue of purchase order.
Replacement warranty
The set-top boxes and their accessories should have a replacement warranty of five years from the date of supply. During the warranty period, the bidder should also provide maintenance support for all items covered under the contract free of cost. The supplier should have arrangements in every taluk for extending service support, the tender document said.
According to the document, TACTV is interested to get price discovery for Triple Play Set Top Box and Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) cable modem, which is also part of the tender.
