No mention of spectrum auction in Budget

The Budget 2019-20 has not accounted for spectrum auction in the non-tax revenue category as Finance Secretary Subahsh Chandra Garg said the Department of Telecom are still working on the modalities of the auction.

"They (the Department of Telecom) said they were still working on the auction modalities. SO if they finalise, we will see later," Garg said at the post-Budget media interaction.

The auction, Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said after taking over in June, could take place in this calendar year. 

The DoT's inter-ministerial panel has decided to refer back the proposals back to the regulator TRAI, seeking the possibility of a price revision as the industry says the base prices of spectrum for 5G services are very high. This has put uncertainty in the entire spectrum auction schedule. 

At the given base prices, the auction, if all the over 8000 mhz of spectrum was sold, could have fetched about RS 4.5 lakh crore to the government.

For the Finance Ministry, the uncertainty is not good news as this would cut the non tax revenues for them. For FY20, the non-tax revenue target is Rs 3.13 lakh crore. IANS