NEW DELHI: The value of 3G auction has touched Rs 75.99 billion, a rise of Rs 6.31 billion over the previous day, as it more than doubles the floor price fixed by the government at Rs 35 billion.

At the end of the twelfth day of auction, the price of spectrum in Delhi has shot to Rs 10.31 billion, up from the previous day’s Rs 8.50 billion.

Even the bid for Mumbai rose to Rs 9.89 billion from Thursday’s Rs 7.52 billion.
 
The rest of Maharashtra peaked at Rs 7.46 billion and Tamil Nadu at Rs 7.32 billion. Karnataka closed at Rs 6.71 billion, while Andhra Pradesh had a bid of Rs 6.52 billion, and Gujarat closed at Rs 6.13 billion. There are no applications of price increment for Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra for the next rounds.

Kerala and Kolkata clocked Rs 2.49 billion and Rs 2.34 billion respectively.

The bids for some states are expected to rise very little, with no applications for price increment for the next round. These include Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and the North-East.

While east Uttar Pradesh closed with a bid of Rs 2.57 billion, west Uttar Pradesh clocked Rs 2.78 billion. Punjab stopped at Rs 1.4 billion and Haryana closed at Rs 2.16 bmillion. Madhya Pradesh and Bihar rose marginally to Rs 2.34 billion and Rs 337.4 million respectively. Rajasthan rose to Rs 2.45 billion. The north-east bid rose to Rs 306 million and that of Assam and Orissa to Rs 303 million. 
 
The bids for some states remained unchanged: West Bengal at Rs 1.24 billion, and Jammu & Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh service areas at Rs 300 million each.

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.