The government on Wednesday said the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd board has approved the bid for acquiring stake in Rwanda Telecom.

"MTNL board in its 195th meeting on June 1, 2004 has approved that MTNL may procure the bidding document and get due diligence through some reputed agency so that based on the outcome of due diligence, decisions whether to invest could be taken," Shakeel Ahmad, minister of state for communications and IT, told Rajya Sabha today in a written reply.

Rwanda Telecom is being put on divestment by the African country.

The Government of Rwanda is planning to divest between 51-100 per cent stake in the entity that has 25,000 fixed line connection network.

The winner will also be given a free mobile network licence to operate in the country.

If successful in acquiring a controlling or the 100 per cent stake in Rwanda Telecom, this would be MTNL's first acquisition abroad where it would be an operator.

So far, the PSU has bagged licences in Mauritius and Nepal and is awaiting a licence in Kenya.