Govt receives all upfront amount for spectrum auction

The 19-day spectrum auction got bids worth Rs 1.09 lakh cr from seven companies

Telecom companies have paid the entire upfront money of about Rs 28,872 crore to the government for the airwaves they acquired during the last month's auction.

According to a Department of Telecom (DoT) official, all the upfront money has been received.

Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications deposited the amount yesterday while others did it today. Today was the last day to make the payments.

Many successful spectrum bidders, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone and Idea Cellular had paid about Rs 10,808 crore towards upfront payments till March 31, helping the government meet its fiscal deficit target of 4.1 per cent for 2014-15.

As per DoT, the upfront payment due to Idea was Rs 7,772.2 crore; Airtel Rs 7,832.20 crore; Vodafone Rs 6,817.23 crore; Reliance Jio Rs 2,591.76 crore; Tata Teleservices Rs 2,013.33 crore; RCom Rs 1,104.09 crore and Aircel Rs 742.5 crore.

The 19-day spectrum auction that ended on March 25 evoked good response from the industry and bids worth Rs 1,09,874.91 crore were received from seven companies.

As per the final results, Idea made total commitment of Rs 30,306.98 crore followed by Airtel at Rs 29,130.20 crore, Vodafone Rs 29,959.74 crore, Reliance Jio Infocomm Rs 10,077.53 crore, Reliance Communication Rs 4,299.13 crore, Tata Teleservices Rs 7,851.33 crore and Aircel Rs 2,250 crore.