NEW DELHI: With virtually no bidding on the 29th day in the FM Phase III e-auctions, the cumulatve winning price at the end of the 116th round has increased by just Rs four lakh to Rs 1156.6 crore as compared to yesterday, the focus now appears to be shifting to the 31 cities that have so far got bids of Rs one to Rs 9 crore.

Even this miniscule rise could be attributed to the fact that the number of channels went up one more to 97 channels in 56 cities, though the total bids remained the same as yesterday being above the cumulative reserve price by Rs 696.7 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 606.4 crore or 110.2 per cent. 

Cities in the corridors leading to the Rs ten crore club appear to be Kanpur, Rajkot, Amritsar, Madurai, and Aurangabad which have all got above Rs six crore each.

The cumulative winning price is exclusive of the migration fee which will take the total revenue even higher.

One channel in Guwahati had fetched a price of Rs 4,11,11,243 against its reserve price of just Rs 37 lakh, registering a rise of amost of 980 per cent. A few days earlier, Bhubaneswar had also set a record with a single channel getting the most competitive bidding increment-wise (Rs 7,40,13,559) by going up nine times the reserve price.

But thirteen cities - Asansol, Gulbarga, Mangalore, Mysore, Puducherry, Rajahmundry, Siliguri, Tiruchy, Tirunveli, Tirupati, Tuticorin, Vijaywada and Warangal – continue to elude bidders.

The Percentage Price Increment applicable for the Next Clock Round rose to five in Bareilly but was one in Jalgaon. There was no change in other cities.

The winning price has risen by more than 100 per cent above their respective reserve prices in Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Nasik, Patna, Pune, Rourkela and Varanasi, all of which got provisional winning bidders at prices more than double the respective reserve prices.

The following Table summarises 29 days of bidding:

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