Government has assigned the radiowaves sold in the recent auction to telecom companies, ahead of the timeline for allocating them within a month of receipt of payment from successful bidders.
"The spectrum which was sold in the recent auction, was harmonised and assigned to successful bidders on November 9-10, much before the one month timeline committed by us," Telecom Secretary JS Deepak told PTI.
In the spectrum auction that concluded on October 6, seven telecom companies made commitments of Rs 65,789 crore for buying 964.80 MHz in various frequency bands, as against 2,354.55 MHz radiowaves put on the block.
UK-based Vodafone's India unit was the most aggressive, taking home Rs 20,279 crore worth of spectrum. Bharti Airtel, the nation's biggest telecom company, bought Rs 14,244 crore worth of spectrum, while Idea Cellular put in Rs 12,798 crore of bids.
Newcomer Reliance Jio spent Rs 13,672 crore on spectrum buying. Other operators who bought spectrum included Tata Teleservices (about Rs 4,619 crore), RCom (about Rs 65 crore) and Aircel (Rs 111 crore).
Post the auctions, in line with DoT's stated rules, all the seven operators made upfront payments between October 19-20. Vodafone and Tata Teleservices deposited upfront payments of Rs 10,139 crore and Rs 2,309 crore, respectively.
Bharti Airtel paid about Rs 7,121 crore under the deferred payment option along with another Rs 445 crore as full payment towards spectrum it bought in circles of Rajasthan and North East.
Idea Cellular paid Rs 6,398 crore, Reliance Jio Rs 5,930 crore, Aircel Rs 55 crore and Reliance Communication Rs 32 crore as deferred payment. All these companies had submitted financial bank guarantees as well.
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