New Delhi : India’s telecom spectrum auction ended in five days, with the government receiving cumulative commitments of Rs 65,789 crore from telecom operators at the end of bidding on Thursday after 31 rounds.
A total 2,354 MHz of spectrum was put on block by the government for auctioning, which they expected to have fetched around Rs 5.66 lakh crore.
The airwaves on the block for telecom operators are in seven bands — 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz.
The companies participating in the auction were Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Tata Tele — who together furnished a total earnest money of Rs 14,653 crore.
The auction is central to the government realising the revenue target of Rs 98,994.93 crore that has been provided for in the budget against ‘other communications services’ — the bulk of which is scheduled from the fee paid for spectrum.
