Idea Cellular places Rs.30,306 Cr bid in radio spectrum auctions

New Delhi, March 26, 2015: 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.