Bids hit Rs 59,981 crore on day 3 of spectrum auction

India’s biggest auction of telecom spectrum, which started on Saturday with seven operators in fray for a total of 2,354.55 MHz across seven bands, received bids of Rs 59,981 crore at the end of third day of bidding. This is Rs 3,100 crore more than what it clocked on the second day i.e. October 3 and Rs 6450 crore higher from the first day of spectrum auction.

Reportedly bids worth Rs 59,981 crore come for around 750 Mhz of spectrum at the end of 17th round. Even after three days of auction there was no demand yet for frequencies in the expensive 700 MHz bands, while bidding interest continued largely around 1800 MHz and 2300 MHz that can be used by operators to provide 4G services. The 900 MHz spectrum also didn’t receive any bid till now.

The second day of the mega telecom spectrum auctions fetched Rs 56,792 crore, up Rs 3,231 crore as compared to Rs 53,531 crore on the first day. The bidding had closed with a cumulative 11 rounds. The total bid value is still well short of the Rs 1.09 lakh crore netted by the government in 2015. The auction raised Rs 61,162 crore in 2014.

The finance ministry in the Budget pegged the revenue target at Rs 98,995 crore from the telecom space. This included Rs 64,000 crore from the auction. The premium 700 MHz band alone has the potential to fetch bids worth over Rs 4 lakh crore if the entire spectrum in this band is sold at the base price. The radiowaves can be used for 2G, 3G and high-speed 4G services. Seven telecom companies including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and Aircel had qualified for participating in the spectrum sale.