3G licence bid up 38%; minimum revenue over Rs 19K cr

The fifth day of spectrum auction for 3G telephony saw the pan-India licence bid touching Rs 4,831 crore, 38 per cent more than the reserve price, which will ensure the government a minimum revenue of Rs 19,668 crore.

At this rate the government has already garnered 50 per cent of what it has planned to raise--Rs 35,000 crore--from the sale of radio waves for 3G telephony and broadband wireless access (BWA) services.

Gujarat continues to be the most lucrative circle at a bid value of Rs 487.76 crore, pipping Delhi at Rs 464.54 crore at the end of 28 rounds. The government has concluded six rounds of spectrum auction today.

With today's closing price, the bid has gone up nearly 38 per cent, the highest increase so far over the base price of Rs 3,500 crore and 5.43 per cent higher than Rs 4,582 crore in the last round on Tuesday. The government revenue is up by Rs 994 crore while the base price is up by Rs 249 crore.

According to details available with the Department of Telecom, Tamil Nadu caught up surprisingly, logging in the third highest bid price of  Rs 455.78 crore, followed by Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh at Rs 451.27 crore each.

UP (East) remained the highest valued B circle at Rs 193.42 crore, followed by Rajasthan at Rs 184.91 crore, MP at Rs 172.80 crore, Kerala at Rs 169.14 crore, UP (West) at Rs 167.47 crore, and Haryana had a bid price of Rs 151.66 crore.

Karnataka and Mumbai, however, were at the same bid price of Rs 442.39 crore.

For the first time Kolkata, which was seeing negative demand, saw excess demand to close at Rs 162.56 crore, while Punjab had negative demand at Rs 127.36 crore.

West Bengal saw a bid price of Rs 123.63 crore and one of the circles to see heavy negative demand. Himachal, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Northeast and J&K too continue to see negative demand at Rs 30 crore bid levels, except Bihar where it was Rs 32.44 crore.

The government is auctioning three slots of 3G airwaves in 17 telecom service areas. Only two slots are up for sale across the country for broadband airwaves, which will begin after the 3G auction.