NEW DELHI: Bids for the 3G auction show no signs of abating, with a steep rise to close at almost Rs 128.51 billion after 143 rounds on the 25th day today.

Applications for price increment for the 144th round tomorrow, however, slowed down to Rs 230 million for some centres.
 
The bid for Mumbai closed at Rs 23157.9 million and Delhi was at Rs 22085.9 million respectively.

Karnataka closed at Rs 13745.1 million, with Tamil Nadu at Rs 11717.5 million, the rest of Maharashtra at 11274.7 million, and Andhra Pradesh at Rs 10708.4 million. Gujarat closed at Rs 10238.6 million and Western Uttar Pradesh went up to Rs 3740 million. Kolkata clocked Rs 3517.9 million, East Uttar Pradesh rose to Rs 2760.5 million, Madhya Pradesh was at Rs 2583.6 million, Punjab rose to Rs 1766.6 million, Bihar rose sharply to Rs 702.3 million and Orissa went up to Rs 354.5 million. Assam and the North-East rose to Rs 315.1 million each and even Jammu and Kashmir showed a small increase to 303 million.
 
The bids for some states remained unchanged: Kerala at Rs 2746.2 million, Rajasthan at Rs 2711.6 million, Haryana at Rs 2225.8 million, West Bengal at Rs 1236.3 million, and Himachal Pradesh at Rs 300 million.

With no applications for price increment for tomorrow, the bids for some service centres are expected to slow down. These include Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, Haryana, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, the North East and Jammu and Kashmir.

The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat DB Telecom, Idea Cellular, Reliance, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Videocon Telecommunications and Vodafone Essar.

The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial 3G operations from 1 September.