Idea makes highest winning bid for telecom spectrum

New Delhi, March 26:

Idea Cellular placed the highest bid of Rs.30,306 crore in the latest round of radio spectrum auctions for telecom operators, with that from Aircel being the lowest at Rs.2,250 crore, Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Thursday.

The quantum of winning bids is Rs.109,874 crore, Prasad officially announced here. He said even as the winners would have to pay around a third of the winning bid price within 10 days, which amounts to a Rs.28,870 crore, companies will be requested to comply by March 31.

The details were revealed after the Supreme Court, which is hearing a host of petitions on the issue of spectrum, allowed the government Thursday to go ahead and finalise the bids and name the winners, but take a decision only after its order on that matter.

The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio, which was expected to bid aggressively for the the spectrum to start 4G services in the country, made a total commitment of Rs.10,077 crore. Bhaarti Airtel committed the second-highest amount of Rs.29,310 crore.

“Even in terms of the quantum of spectrum sold, I’m happy to say, it was the highest in 2015,” Prasad said. He said against 88.8 percent that the latest tranche is expected to fetch, it was 43.04 percent in 2012, 17.78 percent in 2013 and 81.9 percent in 2014.

Among the other players out of eight that qualified, Vodafone bid Rs.25,959 crore, Tata Teleservices bid Rs.7,851 crore, and Reliance Communications bid Rs.4,299 crore. Uninor, however, did not get any spectrum.

In the Supreme Court, Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C. Pant in their order on the matter said: “We are inclined to modify our order, and allow the Union of India to finalise auction and proceed further.”

All the successful bidders shall be intimated that the auction will be finalised subject to the outcome of the hearing of matter by the court, the order said, relaxing its earlier verdict of Feb 26 that restrained the government from finalising the bids.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said the auction was a tremendous success and made a plea to the court to modify its earlier order so that the government can then ask the successful bidders to make the initial payment of Rs.28,000 crore, which has been factored into the budget.

The numbers revealed by the communications minister suggest that the latest tranch of auction has come as a windfall for the government, surpassing the previous high of Rs.106,200 crore that the government had received in the 2010 auction, spread over 34 days with 183 rounds of bidding.

On offer were blocks for 69 service areas at a total reserve price of Rs.80,277 crore, and the provisional allocation was announced for 63 of them at a winning price of Rs.109,874.91 crore. In 50 service areas, the winning bids went at a premium. IANS