NEW DELHI: Activity was seen in just one small city – Bareilly – and there was virtually no bidding on the 30th day in the FM Phase III e-auctions with the cumulative winning price at the end of the 120th round rising by just Rs 20 lakh to Rs 1156.8 crore.

Clearly the bids for all the big cities appear to be over and it is now the smaller 31 cities that have so far got bids of Rs 1 - 9 crore that will call the shots.

The number of channels remained the same as yesterday - 97 channels in 56 cities, but the bids took the cumulative reserve price up to by Rs 696.8 crore or 151.5 per cent against the aggregate reserve price of about Rs 459.8 crore. 

The cumulative provisional winning price has thus risen over the total reserve price of the first batch of 135 FM channels in 69 existing cities - Rs 550.18 crore – by Rs 606.6 crore or 110.2 per cent.

Cities expected to enter the Rs 10 crore club in the next few days appear to be Jodhpur, Kanpur, Rajkot, Amritsar, Madurai, and Aurangabad, which have all got above Rs 6 crore each.

Even after 30 days of bidding, 13 cities elude bidder. The demand in most cities fell by up to three per cent and by four per cent below the excess demand at the price in the 120thround in Hyderabad.

The Percentage Price Increment applicable for the Next Clock Round rose to five in Bareilly, which had a bid of Rs 47,23,425. It remained nil in the other cities. 

The e-auction will now re-commence on Monday, 7 September.