NEW DELHI: Even as Varanasi became the next city to enter the Rs 10 crore club, hope continued to centre around ten cities that have crossed the Rs six-crore in bids, even as the cumulative provisional winning price showed a marginal rise to Rs 1143 crore at the end of the 96th round on the twenty-fourth day in the e-auction for the first batch of FM Phase III cities.

The number of provisional winning channels and cities remained the same as yesterday: 94 channels in 56 cities, but the total bids surpassed the cumulative reserve price by Rs 684.1 crore or 149.1 per cent against the aggregate reserve price of about Rs 459 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 592.8 crore or 107.7 per cent.

While Varanasi marched into the Rs ten-crore club with Rs 10, 11, 61,589, Kolhapur was close behind with Rs 9, 44, 24,489. Though cities like Kanpur, Rajkot, Amritsar and Aurangabad do not seem to be far behind.

The cumulative winning price is exclusive of the migration fee which will take the total revenue even higher. The e-auction will continue as long as bids are received for any of the 135 channels. This included the 13 cities for which no bids have come.

The Auction Activity Requirement rose to 100 per cent after the 59th round on 14 August, after being 90 per cent after the 37th round on 7 August.

But there were still no bids for thirteen cities: Asansol, Gulbarga, Mangalore, Mysore, Puducherry, Rajahmundry, Siliguri, Tiruchy, Tirunveli, Tirupati, Tuticorin, Vijaywada and Warangal.

The percentage price increment applicable for the next clock round rose to five each in Jodhpur and Varanasi but was just one in Guwahati and Shillong. There was no change in the other cities.

The winning price has gone up by more than 100 per cent above their respective reserve prices: Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Nashik, Patna, Pune, Rourkela and Varanasi which got provisional winning bidders at prices more than double the respective reserve prices. A single channel in Bhubaneshwar created a new record by getting the most competitive bidding increment-wise by going up nine times the reserve price.

The provisional winning price in the top three cities reflected no change: Delhi – Rs 1,69,16,89,481 (for just one channel); Mumbai – Rs 1,22,81,31,349 (for two channels); and Bengaluru - Rs 1,09,25,45,545.

Chennai - Rs 53,38,83,479; Ahmedabad at Rs 42,68,76,267, Pune at Rs 42,03,50,268; Jaipur – Rs 28,34,98,387; Chandigarh at Rs 19,04,72,374; Hyderabad at Rs 18,00,00,000, Patna – Rs 17,89,83,876, Cochin - Rs 15,04,83,548, Nasik - Rs 14,66,24,270; and Lucknow - Rs 14,00,55,000 remained static.

The following table summarises 24 days of bidding:

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