The Government at the Centre can pocket more than Rs 30,927 crore by imposing a one-time charge on spectrum held by all existing mobile phone companies.

However, the Government will realistically be able to pocket just Rs 19,109 crore of the estimated Rs 30,927 crore because the inter-ministerial committee on spectrum has said that the cost of the one-time spectrum fee for state-run BSNL and MTNL would be borne by the government.

Moreover, the Government may get just around Rs 6,000 crore this fiscal year because telecommunication companies have been provided with the option of making spread out payment towards this one-time charge.

This one-time spectrum charge has two components. The first component is that operators have to pay for all 2G spectrum they hold beyond 4.4 MHz prospectively for the remaining period of their licences. The prospective charge will fetch the government more than Rs 26,864 crore.

Second, all existing GSM telecommunication companies like Bharti, Idea, Vodafone and BSNL, will have to pay a one-time charge retrospectively for all 2G spectrum they hold beyond the 6.2 MHz from July 2008 to December
2012. The will fetch the government around Rs 4,063 crore.

In October, a Finance Minister P Chidambarm-led Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) had decided that all existing operators must pay a one-time spectrum fee.

The auction process for GSM-based mobile services is slated to start from 12th of November, which was to be followed by auction of CDMA airwaves. But, now no bidder is left for the CDMA auction.