File Photo: IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad
The sale of mobile phone airwaves, which has collected a record $17.6 billion or Rs. 1,09,874 crores in a spectrum auction stretching over 19 days of fierce bidding can be treated as final, the Supreme Court said today, which means the government can collect initial payments from operators, and show the revenue as earned in this financial year, which is key in helping it plug its fiscal deficit.
The court cautioned that the final allocation of airwaves will be subject to its verdict - the auction has been challenged by telecom companies who have questioned the auction guidelines and criteria.
Victorious bidders need to pay a quarter to a third of the winning price within 10 days, and the rest in 10 annual installments beginning 2017.
Yesterday, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government received bids worth Rs. 1,09,874 crores ($17.6 billion), topping the Rs. 1,06,000 crores it raised in 2010. The amount is a third higher than the government expected to raise.
The government did not disclose winning bidders and the regions in which they had won spectrum, but the country's top operators -- Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone Group Plc's India unit and Idea Cellular Ltd -- are expected to have bought the major chunk of the 20-year licences on offer. The Supreme Court has asked the government to publish the results of the auction.
The bidding underscores the fierce competition in India's mobile phone market and the operators' big bet on the potential for mobile data in the world's fastest growing smartphone market.