India Approves Reserve Price for Radio Spectrum Auction

­India’s government has approved the reserve price for the upcoming radio spectrum auction of GSM license. This reserve price was earlier cancelled by the Supreme Court.

The Cabinet approved the reserve price of Rs.14, 000 crores (US$2.5 billion) for 5 MHz pan India in the 1800MHz band. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had originally recommended a base price of 36.22 billion rupees ($655 million).The Cabinet also approved the recommendation of EGoM for reserve price for 800 MHz band at 1.3 times that of 1800 MHz band.

The final figure for the GSM licenses is lower than the ones proposed by Ministerial body and the telecom regulator but is substantially higher than the rates offered in the controversial 2008 license tender.

The auction is due to take place at the end of this month in order to meet the deadline set by the Supreme Court.