The government on Monday asked cellular operator Idea to surrender the licence of either Punjab or Karnataka telecom circle to enable the merger of Spice Communications with itself.

Department of Telecom secretary Siddharth Behura said the company would not get any official "response" on the merger proposal till one of the two licences was returned.

“Policy is very clear. What will one do with two licences?,” said Behura.

The DoT has also made it clear that the company would not get any "refund" on the return of licence.

Earlier this year Idea Cellular, one of the fastest-growing mobile-phone carriers, offered Rs 32.4 billion ($757 million) for control of Spice Communications.

Experts do believe that Idea could surrender its own licences and retain Spice licences in both Punjab and Karnataka as Spice radio frequency, or spectrum, in the two states can accommodate more users. Idea is yet to start its operations in these two states.

According to a data released recently by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Idea this year has been adding customers faster than larger rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Group Plc's Indian unit.