NEW DELHI: There was virtually no activity on the 31^st day in the FM Phase III e-auctions with the cumulative winning price at the end of the 124^th round rising by just Rs ten lakh to Rs 1156.9 crore.

The smaller 31 cities that have so far got bids of Rs one to Rs 9 crore will take a call as there are no bidders for the larger cities.

The overall cumulative provisional winning price has risen over the total reserve price of the first batch of 135 FM channels in 69 existing cities - Rs 550.18 crore – by Rs 606.72 crore or 110.27 per cent.  

But apart from the fact that thirteen cities have not got a single bidder despite a month having passed, it is interesting that all the cities whose prices have remained static for a long period in fact got bids lower than the clock round price (given in brackets in each case): Delhi – Rs 1,69,16,89,481 (Rs 1,70,86,06,375 for one channel); Mumbai – Rs 1,22,81,31,349 (Rs 1,24,04,12,662 for two channels); and Bengaluru - Rs 1,09,25,45,545 (Rs 1, 10, 34, 71,000).

The position is the same for other cities having got bids of more than Rs ten crore, Chennai - Rs 53,38,83,479  (Rs 53,92,22,313); Ahmedabad at Rs 42,68,76,267  (Rs 43,11,45,029), Pune at Rs 42,03,50,268 (Rs 42,45,53,770); Jaipur – Rs 28,34,98,387  (Rs 28,63,33,370); Chandigarh at Rs 19,04,72,374 (Rs 19,23,77,097); Hyderabad at Rs 18,00,00,000 (Rs 18,18,00,000), Patna – Rs 17,89,83,876 (Rs 18,07,73,714), Varanasi at Rs 17,49,18,947 (Rs 17,66,68,136), Cochin - Rs 15,04,83,548 (Rs 15,80,07,725), Nasik - Rs 14,66,24,270 (Rs 14,80,90,512); Lucknow - Rs 14,00,55,000 (Rs 14,14,55,550); and Jodhpur at Rs 11,44,39,124 (Rs 11,55,83,515).

The number of channels remained the same - 97 channels in 56 cities, and the bids showed a minor rise in the cumulative reserve price by Rs 697.05 crore or 151.58 per cent against the aggregate reserve price of about Rs 459.8 crore. The Percentage Price Increment applicable for the Next Clock Round remained nil in all cities.

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

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 124^th round in Hyderabad.

The following Table summarises 31 days of bidding:

The e-Auction for the first batch of private FM Radio phase III channels began on 27 July, 2015. The auction is being closely monitored and supervised by senior officials to maintain integrity of the process.

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