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| Edited By: |Source: |Updated: Mar 30, 2018, 02:48 AM IST
Gujarat is the first state to cross the Rs500-crore mark, as far as the highest bid goes, during the 3G (third generation) telecom spectrum auction. At the end of play on Day 6 of the auction, Gujarat recorded the winning price of Rs 512.61 crore, the highest across the country. This is 60.19% higher than the reserve price of Rs 320 crore in the circle. Gujarat is part of A circle, where the government had fixed the base price at Rs 320 crore.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh (East), which belongs to B Circle, got the winning price of Rs209.23 crore on Friday. This is 74.3% more than the reserve price of Rs120 crore for this circle. This is the highest growth seen across the country.
While Gujarat maintained its lead in the 3G auction on Friday, Delhi continued in the second position at the provisional winning bid price of Rs493.09 crore. Mumbai came up to the fifth position, from the seventh in the past couple of days.
Mumbai’s highest bid price was Rs469.57 crore, after 34 rounds of bidding. Andhra Pradesh is tied with Mumbai in the fifth position, and Karnataka has been pushed to the bottom of A Circle at Rs 460.33 crore.
The maximum pan-India bid price on Friday touched Rs 5095.91 crore, which is 45.5% more than the reserve price of Rs 3,500 crore. Also, the maximum bid price of Day 6 was 5.48% higher than the previous day’s figure of Rs4831.09 crore.
In C circle, there was no variation. Bihar was on top with Rs32.44 crore, while others were at Rs30 crore each, which is the reserve price in C circle.
The government is targeting to raise Rs35,000 crore from 3G and BWA auction. The reserve price set by the government for pan-India 3G spectrum is Rs3,500 crore for an operator and Rs1,750 crore for broadband wireless access (BWA).
The auction process would close once all the circles achieve an equilibrium that is the number of slots available equal the number of bidders.
3G auction would facilitate high-speed mobile services in the country. It is a simultaneous auction of 22 service areas over a secure website. The auction has multiple rounds, and it could be spread over several weeks.
Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and Aircel are bidding for all-India 3G spectrum. Etisalat, S Tel and Videocon Telecommunications are bidding only for some circles.
