NEW DELHI: The pan India bid price at the 3G auction has reached Rs 60.68 billion, 73 per cent up from the base price of Rs 35 billion, after the end of the eighth day. A total of 46 clock rounds have been completed.
Mumbai and Tamil Nadu have joined Delhi with bids for more than Rs 6 billion. The bid for Delhi circle was Rs 6.91 billion, while Mumbai trailed at Rs 6.35 billion and Tamil Nadu Rs 6.06 billion.
The bid for Gujarat steadied at Rs 5.49 billion, lower than the bid for the rest of Maharashtra which closed today at Rs 5.89 billion.
The bid for Andhra Pradesh was at Rs 5.24 billion, lower than Karnataka’s closing bid of Rs 5.39 billion.
Kolkata received a bid of Rs 1.81 billion, only marginally above Saturday’s bid of Rs 1.74 billion.
While east Uttar Pradesh closed with a bid of Rs 2.35 billion, west Uttar Pradesh clocked Rs 2.44 billion. Madhya Pradesh had a bid of Rs 2.23 billion.
Kerala stopped at Rs 2.06 billion, Punjab at Rs 1.34 billion, Haryana at Rs 1.83 billion, and rest of West Bengal at Rs 1.24 billion.
The bids for some states remained unchanged: Rajasthan at Rs 2.21 billion (bid on Saturday); Assam, Orissa and Jammu & Kashmir service areas and Himachal Pradesh at Rs 300 million each, the north-east at Rs 303 million, and Bihar at Rs 327.6 million. These states along with Punjab and Haryana are not expected to see any change tomorrow, with no price increment for the next round.
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.
The auction, which began on 9 April 9 may take about two weeks to complete and the government is expecting total revenue from the 3G and BWA auctions to go way beyond its earlier estimated figure of Rs 350 billion.
The BWA auction will begin after the 3G auction and 11 telecom companies - Aircel Ltd, Augere (Mauritius), Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Infotel Broadband Services, Qualcomm, Reliance WiMax, Spice Internet Service Provider, Tata Communications Internet Services, Tikona Digital Networks and Vodafone Essar - have qualified, according to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
