NEW DELHI: Bids for the 3G auction showed a steep rise to close at Rs 120.7 billion after 137 rounds on the end of 24th day today.

Applications for price increment for the 138th round tomorrow ranged up to Rs 400 million for some centres.

The bids for both Mumbai and Delhi crossed the Rs 20 billion mark, at Rs 21.29 billion and Rs 20.81 billion respectively.
 
Karnataka closed at Rs 12.16 billion, with the rest of Maharashtra at 11.05 billion, Tamil Nadu at Rs 10.46 billion, and Andhra Pradesh at Rs 10.29 billion. Gujarat closed at Rs 9.94 billion, and West Uttar Pradesh went up to Rs 3.52 billion. Kolkata clocked Rs 3.31 billion, East Uttar Pradesh rose to Rs 2.68 billion, Madhya Pradesh was at Rs 2.51 billion, Punjab rose to Rs 1.66 billion, Bihar rose sharply to Rs 516.3 million, and Orissa went up to Rs 337.5 million. 
 
With no applications for price increment for tomorrow, the bids for some service centres are expected to slow down. These include Kerala, Haryana, East Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and the North East.

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.