NT signs 3 billion maintenance contract with same Chinese company that caused billing problems

Nepal Telecom has again reached a maintenance agreement with Asian Info, a Chinese company that has repeatedly caused problems in the billing system. Telecom has entrusted the company with maintenance at a cost of 3 billion rupees for four years, in which there is a provision that it can be extended for 1 year.

Asian Info had connected the current billing system with Telecom. The company continuously has been getting responsibility for the maintenance of the system. However, the recent investigation report by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has shown that the company has installed a decade-old ‘outdated billing system’, due to which the telecom network has been going down several times.

According to telecom sources, it has been found that more than 3 billion is not reflected in the billing every year due to problems in the billing system. Because of this, the income has been affected and the telecom itself has reached a state of collapse.

As 1 to 1.5 percent ‘variation’ is considered normal in the billing system, currently, up to 10 percent variation occurs in telecom and sources say that high officials of telecom are involved in this. Telecom has been billing more than 32 billion rupees annually. According to 10 percent of which, more than 3 billion 20 million are missing.

A few weeks ago, there was a problem in Nepal Telecom’s postpaid SIM account management system. Due to this problem, the postpaid user’s amount was deducted, it was not visible while recharging and there was a one-way bar. Even before that, due to problems in the billing system itself, the telecom network was disrupted across the country.

After such a problem was raised, the Ministry of Communications formed an inquiry committee. The committee, drawing the conclusion that the billing system is not only old, but also non-standard, suggested that the billing system in Nepal Telecom should be changed.

However, Sunil Paudel, Managing Director of Telecom, has signed a maintenance contract with the same Asian Info Company for five years.