New Delhi, Apr 18 (IANS): India Saturday completed 40 rounds of an auction to award radio frequency spectrum for third generation telecom services in the country, with Delhi beating Gujarat and attracting the highest bid price at over Rs.600 crore.
Leaving Gujarat, which had been attracting the highest bid for the last three consecutive days, far behind in the race, Delhi regained its top position and received the highest bid price at Rs.626.37 crore.
Mumbai attracted the second highest bid at Rs.598.59 crore, followed by Tamil Nadu at Rs.549.24 crore, Gujarat at Rs.533.40 crore and Maharashtra at Rs.533.37 crore.
At the end of the 7th day of the auction, which began April 9, the provisional winning price for a pan-India licence stood at Rs.5,710.36 crore, up 63.15 percent up from the Rs.3,500 crore reserve price.
Orissa, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir could not attract even a single player, according to the latest data available on the website of Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
The 3G services will facilitate much faster connectivity than what is available now and enable applications such as Internet TV, video-on-demand, audio-video calls and high-speed data exchange.
Slots for three-four players are available in each of the 22 circles into which the country has been geographically divided for these services.
The government has already given Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) spectrum for 3G services on the condition that they will pay the same licence fee as would be levied on private players after the auction.
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.
It is a simultaneous auction for 22 circles over a secure website. At each round, the price is hiked from between 10-1 percent based on demand.
The auction is being held from 9 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. on all days, except Sundays and national holidays. The process will end only when the demand is equal to the number of slots available in each circle.
The bid data, including the winning companies' names, will be made public after the auction's completion and approval by the government. The winning firms will have to deposit the money within 10 days after the auction.
The successful bidders would be allowed to offer 3G services on a commercial basis from Sep 1.
The government hopes to garner a minimum of Rs.30,000 crore from the auction.