NEW DELHI: Government-owned Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) has blacklisted networking giant Cisco Systems India from participating in its future tenders for two years, and accused the multinationalof adopting non-responsive, monopolistic and anti-competitive practices to ‘sabotage’ the PSU’s participation in a Karnataka state e-governance tender.

In an order dated January 14, 2026, the state-owned firm alleged that the conduct of Cisco Systems in the particular instance “indicates unfair, exclusionary and anti-competitive practices, aimed at sabotaging TCIL’s participation in a public procurement process for unlawful commercial gain”.

TCIL said the KSWAN 3.0 tender was of strategic and economic importance to it, and that it is in good faith that the company had approached Cisco Systems India (OEM) as early as December 18, 2025, seeking OEM support required in government procurement, including technical compliance documents, product data-sheets, solution inputs and issuance of manufacturer authorisation forms (MAF).

But despite state-owned firm's repeated requests and follow-ups, Cisco failed to provide the requisite bid-related documents within a reasonable time and the multinational, according to it, was well aware of the bid submission deadline. On January 12, 2026, at a meeting in the TCIL office, executives of Cisco committed to providing bid-related documents by the end of the day, but the company failed to keep its word, TCIL alleged.

TCIL, in its order said it has blacklisted Cisco Systems from participating in any of its future tenders, bids, RFPs or procurement processes for two years.

However, the undergoing contracts, works, bids and projects will not be affected by the order, it added.

The matter is related to a tender floated by Karnataka Centre for eGovernance for the selection of a system integrator for KSWAN 3.0. The scope of the tender pertained to the provision of statewide network connectivity for the Government of Karnataka offices, along with operations and maintenance services for a period of five years. The last date for bid submission was January 14, 2026, it added.