Business
Idea is top bidder for telecom spectrum: Minister
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 here on Thursday.
The quantum of winning bids
is Rs.109,874 crore, Prasad announced here. He said even as the winners
were required to pay within 10 days around a third of the winning bid
price -- amounting totally to some Rs.28,872 crore -- the companies will
be requested to comply by March 31.
The minister also sought to
allay fears that the high cost of spectrum due to the latest round will
not impact on the tariff. He said detailed analysis by the ministry
suggested that telecom tariff could go up only marginally by around
Rs.0.013 per minute.
The details of the winning bids 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 spectrum to start 4G
services in the country, made a total commitment of Rs.10,077 crore.
Bharti Airtel committed the second-highest amount of Rs.29,310 crore behind Idea Cellular.
"Even
in terms of the quantum of spectrum sold, I'm happy to say, it was the
highest in 2015," Prasad said. He said that 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 win 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 the matter by the
court, the order said, relaxing its earlier verdict of February 26
restraining 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
tranche of auction -- spread over 19 days with 115 rounds of bidding --
has come as a windfall for the government, surpassing the previous high
of Rs.106,200 crore that the government received in the 2010 auction,
which was spread over 34 days with 183 rounds of bidding.
On
offer this time 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.