It is raining bonanza for the government which has received commitments worth Rs 102,215 crore from telecom operators at the end of the tenth day of bidding on Saturday. The tenth day witnessed six rounds of fresh bidding and at the end of 61th day about 87% of the spectrum was provisionally allocated to bidders. Aggressive bidding was witnessed in 1800 MHz, 900 MHz and 800 MHz band, with majority of service areas being sold at a premium over reserve price. However, still spectrum is pending to be sold.
The government put up 103.75 MHz in 800 MHz band, 177.8 MHz in 900 MHz band and 99.2 MHz in 1,800 MHz band for second generation (2G) telephony, while it also pit up 5MHz in the 2,100 MHz band for third generation (3G) telephony.
Notably, these commitments come over and above the Rs 200,000 crore that India Inc has already bid under the two phases of auctions for award of coal blocks. But, the proceeds from this auction will be distributed to the respective state governments over 30 years. Meanwhile, the amount is also higher than what central government has budgeted for Rs 43,161.72 crore from e-auctions of spectrum for the current fiscal while the reserve price for the entire spectrum on offer in the four bands, across India, was around Rs 80,000 crore.
The eight telecom service providers participating in the auctions are Reliance Communications, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Tata Teleservices, Uninor, Idea Cellular and Aircel. They have submitted earnest money of Rs 20,435 crore.