NEW DELHI: Barely six weeks after the last e-auction, Doordarshan will hold the 22nd e-auction for its free-to-air DTH platform Freedish on 22 September in an attempt to touch the target of 112 television channels in the next few months.

Doordarshan has set a reserve price of Rs 3.7 crore per slot (as in the last few auctions) for the online e-auction, though Indiantelevision.com learnt that the bid amount went up to Rs 4.7 crore in earlier e-auctions.

In the 21st auction on 12 August, DD Freedish managed to auction six slots for approximately Rs 23.2 crore.

However, DD sources refused to divulge the number of slots being auctioned to prevent bidders forming consortia to bid or resort to other malpractices.

Sources also said that while Freedish may be encrypted from Mpeg2 to Mpeg4 shortly to keep a tab on the number of subscribers, it would remain free-to-air.

The e-auction will be conducted by C1 India Pvt. Ltd., Noida which is also conducting the FM Radio Phase III auctions on behalf of Prasar Bharati.   

The reserve price in the 15th e-auction was Rs 3 crore and was raised to Rs 3.7 crore in the 16th auction.

Currently, Freedish has 64 channels including its own channels, and Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV.

The participation amount (EMD) in the e-auction is Rs 1.5 crore, which has to be deposited in advance before or by 12 noon on 22 September along with the non-refundable processing fee of Rs 10,000 in favour of PB (BCI) Doordarshan Commercial Service, New Delhi.

Incremental amount for the auction will be Rs 10 lakh and the time for every slot e-auction will be of 15 minutes duration.

Of the reserve price, Rs 1.1 crore has to be deposited within one month of placement and another Rs 1.1 crore within two months along with service tax of 14 per cent on the bid amount.

The balance bid amount needs to be deposited within six months, failing which the reserve price will be forfeited.