Helped by good demand for spectrum across all available bands, the government received bids worth ₹1.49 lakh crore at the end of second day of the auction, with bidding to continue on Thursday too.
Five rounds of bidding were conducted on Wednesday, taking the total number of rounds in the auction so far to nine.
“I am happy that there is very good competition. Now there is competition in 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2500 MHz, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz bands…there's good competition across this table,” Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
He expressed happiness that the demand was good for the spectrum in 700 MHz band — which went unsold in the last two auctions, largely due to steep prices. “The 700 MHz is very important for providing coverage in far-flung areas," the Minister added.
On the first day of the auctions, the government had received record bids worth ₹1.45 lakh crore, surpassing the expectations of bids worth ₹80,000-90,000 crore from the entire auction. The auctions wherein a total of 72,097.85 MHz (or 72 GHz) of spectrum worth about ₹4.3 lakh crore has been put on sale, is seeing participation from all the four private players — Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Adani Data Network.
The previous record for government revenues was ₹1.09 lakh crore in the auctions held in 2015.
