3G auction revenues cross Rs48,000 crore; Mumbai, Delhi bids top Rs2,000 crore

The government on Friday concluded 137 rounds of the auction to award spectrum for third generation (3G) telecom services in the country, with the government's provisional revenue from the sale of airwaves reaching Rs48,677.47 crore ($10.7 billion) and the nationwide licence price crossing the Rs12,000 crore ($2.6 billion) mark.

At the end of the 24th day of the auction, which began on 9 April, the provisional winning price for a pan-India 3G licence stood at Rs12,068.94 crore, up around 245 per cent from the Rs3,500 crore reserve price.

Not unexpectedly, bidding was highest for the Mumbai and Delhi circles, where the bid price crossed the Rs2,000-crore mark. On Friday, Delhi closed at Rs2,080.6 crore, while Mumbai finished at Rs2,128.9 crore. The original bid price for both the circles was at Rs 320 crore. Maharashtra was next at Rs1,105.26 crore.

Slots for three or four players are available in each of the 22 circles into which the country has been geographically divided for the 3G services, which will facilitate faster connectivity and enable applications such as internet TV, video-on-demand, audio-video calls and high-speed data exchange.

While Bihar, Mumbai, Delhi, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu witnessed more players bidding than the number of slots available, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the northeast still could not attract enough bidders.

Nine telecom companies - Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Aircel, Etisalat, S Tel and Videocon Telecommunications - are participating in the online auction.