The Telecom Ministry today indicated that it may undertake auction to sell one slot of pan-India 20 Mhz of Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum and a decision will be taken in consultation with the Finance Ministry.
"In BWA, 20 Mhz of spectrum is available across country and the (telecom) ministry is in talks with Finance Ministry to undertake auction . But final decision has not been taken yet,"Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here.
Last year, the government had earned a whopping Rs 1.06 lakh crore by auctioning 3G and BWA spectrum. The BWA auction was for two slots of 20 MHz each of pan-India spectrum.
The government had raised Rs 67,719 crore from 3G spectrum auction. While BWA auction had fetched about Rs 39,000 crore.
The Finance Ministry has been asking the Telecom Ministry to sell spectrum in order to cut down the fiscal deficit.
Sibal also announced that the Ministry will announce draft of New Telecom Policy-2011, Information and Technology Policy and Electronics Policy in October this year.
"We will announce three policies in October -- Draft of New Telecom Policy-2011, IT Policy and Electronics Policy,"he said. |