Favouring lower reserve price, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said, the benchmark prices for spectrum auction are unrealistic as the previous two attempts to sell airwaves were unsuccessful. While addressing an event, Ahluwalia said we can arbitrarily lower the reserve price or we can refer the matter back to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and it would be better to get the recommendation from TRAI.
In the previous two rounds of spectrum auction, the government was able to sell airwaves only for around Rs 13,000 crore. Now, the government has planned for third round of spectrum auction and may put on block 2G GSM airwaves in Delhi and Mumbai circles and CDMA spectrum in 13 circles that remained unsold in the previous sale held in March’13.
Earlier, the government had said that it would conduct the third round of auction putting on block all 2G spectrum freed from cancellation of 122 licences, after the Supreme Court in February this year ordered the DoT to auction entire spectrum freed. Further, as per DoT's plan for the third round of auction, pan-India 2G spectrum in 1800 Mhz frequency band will be put for auction. However, it is yet to decide on the quantum of CDMA spectrum that would be auctioned in 13 circles.