Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has clarified that the Government does not want monopoly in telecom sector. Days after Vodafone CEO’s exit threat, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had even said that the government doesn’t want any telecom company to shut its operations in India. Both Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel posted huge losses in Q2FY20. While Vodafone Idea recorded a loss of Rs 50,921 crore, Bharti Airtel’s loss figure for the quarter stood at Rs 23,045 crore.

The Digital Communications Commission—the policy making arm of the sector on Friday cleared TRAI recommended price based auction of spectrum including 5G spectrum for the first time at a value of Rs 5.22 lakh crore.

“The DCC has decided that the TRAI recommendation be accepted and we are going to auction 8305 Mzh and we hope to have this auction sometime in March or April next year. We have already floated the tender for the auctioneer and the bids will be opened early next year sometime in January. The reserve price added together comes to about Rs 5.22 lakh crore,” the secretary said.