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Bharti group dominates mobile licence bids

Telecoms firm Bharti Cellular was the highest bidder at the end of the first round of financial bidding for new mobile phone licences being auctioned by the government, bidding details showed.

Details of bids opened by the government on Wednesday showed that the firm belonging to New Delhi-based unlisted telecoms group Bharti Enterprises had bid Rs 7.22 billion and was the highest bidder in nine of the 11 zones it bid for.

The government late last month received 57 bids from seven telecom companies for the right to be the fourth cellular operator in the country's 21 telecom zones. Subsequently, one of the bidding companies, Reliance Communications, withdrew its 15 bids after it failed to meet qualifying conditions.

The government hopes to award the licences by the end of August after a lengthy process which involves three rounds of financial bidding. The highest bid in this round of financial bidding will be the reserve price for the second round.

Details of the financial bids showed that Reliable Internet Services Ltd, a company of India's largest private conglomerate, the Reliance group, had bid Rs 5.15 billion for 15 licences.

Barakhamba Sales & Services, a consortium of Hong Kong's Hutchison Telecom and India's Essar group, bid Rs 4.74 billion for seven licences, Birla AT&T Communications bid Rs 1.22 billion for three licences and Escorts Telecommunications bid Rs 2.92 billion for eight licences.

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