Government plans to raise Rs 1500 crore from auction of Radio FM Phase-III

21 Mar 2012 Evaluate

The government plans to raise Rs 1500 crore from the auction of Radio FM Phase-III. The auction will be conducted in phases and the first phase is expected to finish by March 2012, as per Information and Broadcasting Secretary, Uday Kumar Verma.

The government expects to garner Rs 500 crore through the auctioning in the first phase of Phase III.  The earlier auctions of Phase I and Phase II had resulted in a total revenue collection of about Rs 1,733 crore through one time entry fee, migration fee and annual fee, among others, up to May 31, 2011.

The FM Phase-III policy plans to extend FM radio services to about 227 new cities, in addition to the present 86 cities with a total of 839 new FM radio channels. It will result in the coverage of all cities with a population of one lakh and above through private FM channels.

The government said, in its budget proposals for 2012-13, that it had estimated to raise non-tax revenue of Rs 1,600 crore from auction of FM phase III license, but this auction have not materialsed so far in this financial year, ending March 31, 2012. It may be noted that the FM radio expansion plan has already run into many delays. The Union Cabinet had approved the proposal for granting new FM radio licenses to private players in July 2011, and said the process was slated to be completed by end of this fiscal however, it got postponed to April 2012. Now there are reports suggesting that it may be further delayed to August end.

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