The government has earned ₹1,157 crore in the first batch of private FM radio phase-III channels e-auction, which concluded on Tuesday after 32 days of bidding.

This was nearly 110 per cent higher than the total reserve price of ₹550.18 crore set for all the 135 channels which were up for grabs. Now, the process of allocating frequencies will begin.

“At the end of the channel allocation stage, 97 channels in 56 cities became provisional winning channels with cumulative provisional winning price of about ₹1156.9 crore against their aggregate reserve price of about ₹459.8 crore” the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in a statement.

This means bid prices was nearly 151 per cent higher than their respective reserve price of the winning channels.

Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru witnessed aggressive bidding and their winning bid price crossed the ₹100-crore mark. Delhi, for its single channel, got the highest provisional winning bid at ₹169.16 crore. Mumbai, which had two channels up for grabs, saw winning bid of ₹122.81 crore each, followed by Bengaluru which got winning bid price of ₹109.25 crore for one channel.

Cities like Guwahati, Bhubaneshwar and Jodhpur witnessed nearly 800 per cent jump over the reserve price for their channels. Overall 18 cities witnessed winning bid prices that were more than double their respective reserve prices. These include cities such as Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Chennai, Nasik, Pune, Varanasi, Shillong and Rourkela among others.

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