Spectrum sale fetches government less than Rs10,000 crore
14 Nov 2012
The government is estimated to have received total bids worth less than Rs10,000 crore in the auction sale of second-generation radio spectrum, which ended today, with nearly 45 per cent of the spectrum on offer still remaining unsold.
The government had expected to mop up Rs28,000 crore through sale of 2G spectrum to GSM operators and another Rs12,000 crore through the sale of 800 MHz spectrum to CDMA operators, making for additional revenue to the tune of Rs40,000 crore in the current fiscal.
The sale of spectrum to CDMA operators had already fizzled out after the Tatas opted out of the auction.
Five operators, namely, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Norway's Telenor ASA, Videocon Telecommunications and Idea Cellular had participated in the auction of spectrum for GSM operators.
Videocon and Idea is reported to have won spectrum in 7 circles while Telenor got spectrum in four circles. Airtel and Vodafone won spectrum in one circle each.
However, none of the five companies bid for a pan-India spectrum, for which the reserve price was set at Rs14,000 crore for 5 MHz.
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