"We are demonstrating against the delay in acquisition of equipments. Even after two months of Motorola withdrawing the case against BSNL, nothing has been done to place the orders. We are losing customers each hour and nobody is bothered about that," BSNL Employees Union general secretary V A N Namboodiri told PTI.

BSNL officials were not available for comments on the issue. When asked that the current delay could be due to new minister A Raja's insistence on demanding a lower price from the L1 bidder Ericsson and Nokia, he said, "if there was scope for lowering the price it should have been done during the tendering process. At this point re-starting the entire process and changing the decision will only benefit the private operators".

The tender was floated two years back and till date only talks are going on, Namboodiri said adding the union was concerned about the loss of customers, which is affecting its market share, revenue and branding.

In the May subscriber figures, Hutch has which was on third position surpassed BSNL, recording a 5.4 per cent growth in subscriber base. Hutch had a market share of 22.36 per cent, while BSNL had 21. 43 per cent.