The government has extended the deadline for bidders to submit the application to February 16. Along with that, the auction for spectrum has been pushed back to March 4.
Previously, the Department of Telecom invited for applications in the auction which had a deadline of February 6. The auction was scheduled to start from February 25. Under the new schedule, which was uploaded on the website of Department of Telecom, bidders have got 10 days of extension to submit their application.
The spectrum auction will see the government selling a total of 380.75 MHz in three different bands. The government has already finalized the pricing structures for 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, and 800 MHz bands, but it hasn’t finalized the price of 2100 MHz band, in which it will sell 5 MHz. This particular band is used for 3 G services. In the upcoming auction, the government will sell 2100 MHz band which covers 17 out of 22 telecom areas in the country.
As for pricing, the government will sell every pan-India MHz in the 800 MHz band at Rs. 3,646 core. Rs. 3,980 crore for every MHz in 900 MHz band pan-India except Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Jammu and Kashmir and Rs. 2,191 crore pan-India except in Maharashtra and West Bengal per every MHz in the 1800 band.
The government is expecting to sell the spectrum for Rs. 64,840 crore in the upcoming auction. In the last spectrum auction that took place in February 2014, it earned a total of Rs.62,162 crore.
