Spectrum Auction

The Spectrum auction lasted for 19 days in which 115 rounds of bidding took place fetching about Rs 109,875 crore for the government. Out of this, the government must get at least Rs 28,873.40 crore immediately.

Under the auction condition, a successful bidder has the option to pay either entire amount upfront or at least 25 pc of the bid amount (for 800 & 900 MHz bands), and 33 pc (for 1900 & 2100 MHz bands) while the balance can be spread over 10 years equal installments (with interest) after 2 years of moratorium period.

Idea was the highest contributor to the government’s revenue followed by Bharti, Vodafone, Reliance-Jio, etc, as shown in the table below. The details of the same can be seen at tables at pg 20 & 21.

The actual demand raised by DoT on various operators after adjusting for non-availability of spectrum in some districts of certain service areas is also shown in the table.

The spectrum auction began on March 4 and concluded on March 25, 2015. Unlike earlier spectrum auctions, it was a concurrent bidding for the entire offered spectrum in all the offered bands – 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz. This is the first time that spectrum was offered simultaneously. Previous auctions had conducted auction of different bands sequentially.