Winners get 10 days to deposit auction money

The successful bidders in the auction of broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum will have to deposit the winning bid amount by June 22.

The government would receive Rs 38,543.13 crore from the auction. After making the payment, the successful bidders are to apply separately to the Wireless Planning and Coordination wing of the Department of Telecommunications for the Letter of Intent (LoI) for allocation of identified frequencies, an official statement said.

The provisional results of the BWA auction, which began on May 24 and went on for 16 days, were also approved the government today, the statement added.

The recently concluded 3G spectrum auction, which ended on May 19 after 34 days of aggressive bidding, got the government another Rs 68,000 crore. The government had originally fixed a combined target of Rs 35,000 crore from the auction of both 3G and BWA.

Infotel Broadband, in which Reliance Industries bought 95 per cent stake, was the only pan-India winner in the BWA auction. Infotel will pay Rs 12,847.71 crore for acquiring spectrum in 22 circles. US-based chip maker Qualcomm and Bharti Airtel bagged BWA spectrum in four circles each. Aircel won in eight circles and Tikona Digital got spectrum in five.

State-run telecom majors BSNL and MTNL, which had already been allotted the spectrum, will also have to match the winning bid price for their respective circles.