Garage sale

After a botched telecom spectrum auction in November, realising not even a fourth of the Rs 40,000 crore that had been targeted, the Government is anxiously seeking to revive bidder interest by lowering the base price. An Empowered Group of Ministers has recommended a 30-50 per cent reduction in the reserve price of spectrum in the 800 megahertz (MHz) frequency band used by CDMA operators. The pan-India price for 5 MHz of these airwaves was set at a minimum Rs 18,100 crore in the November auction, which failed to elicit a single bid. Even for the 1800 MHz GSM spectrum, a base price of Rs 14,000 crore for a contiguous 5 MHz slot resulted in four circles (including Mumbai and Delhi) not receiving any bid at all.

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