Pan India broadband wireless bid hits Rs5,245 crore

The ongoing e-auction for broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum got more intense on Friday, with the value of a pan India licence reaching Rs5,245.1 crore at the end of the fourth day of bidding, which is over three times the reserve price of Rs1,750 crore.

At the current price, the government would easily get over Rs15,000 crore from the sale of three pan-India slots of BWA spectrum, including one slot each that would go to government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (in Delhi and Mumbai) without the state-owned companies having to bid for it.

As many as 11 companies are bidding for BWA spectrum, which includes leading telecom players like Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Vodafone and Tata.

This is so far the highest number of rounds of bidding on a single day. Auction is highly competitive in Delhi, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, where the value of spectrum has reached Rs612 crore compared to the base price of Rs160 crore.

At this valuation government is set to get Rs15,735 crore. The ministry of communications and information technology had set a target of Rs15,000 crore from BWA, auction but going by the current intensity the Government can expect to get much higher amount.

Against the government estimates of earning Rs35,000 crore from both 3G and BWA spectrum auction, the exchequer is already assured to get over Rs83,000 crore, while analysts say it might easily cross Rs90,000 crore.

The government got Rs67,719 crore from the 3G auction alone.

Value of pan India broadband spectrum has. The auction picked up more intensity on Friday with eight rounds of bidding.