NEW DELHI: Six clock rounds bidding happened on the fifth day of the 3G auction, completeing a total of 28 rounds by the end of Thursday. By the end of the day, the All-India price had reached Rs 48.31 billion, 38 per cent up from the base price of Rs 35 billion.
Gujarat continues to top the bids at Rs 4.88 billion, while Delhi maintained the lead among the cities with Rs 4.64 billion.
The bid for Tamil Nadu rose to Rs 4.56 billion, while that of the rest of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh went up to Rs 4.51 billion each. The price for Mumbai service area went up to Rs 4.44 billion. Kolkata received a bid of just Rs 1.63 billion
Karnataka was the only other state to cross the figure of Rs 4 billion, with the bid reaching Rs 4.42 billion.
While east Uttar Pradesh received a bid of Rs 1.93 billion, west Uttar Pradesh bid for Rs 1.67 billion. Rajasthan received the next highest bid of Rs 1.85 billion.
The bids for Assam, Orissa and Jammu & Kashmir service areas remained at Rs 300 million each and that of the north-east remained at Rs 303 million while Himachal Pradesh managed to reach the figure of Rs 300 million. Bihar had a bid of Rs 324.4 million.
The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat DB Telecom, Idea Cellular, Reliance, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Videocon Telecommunications and Vodafone Essar.
The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial 3G operations from 1 September.