While presenting the Budget on Monday, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had indicated that the government is expecting as much as Rs 35,000 crore from the auction of third generation (3G) spectrum.

However, presenting the Interim Budget in February last, he had said the government would be able to raise just about Rs 20,000 crore from the same.

It, therefore, seems that after recent meetings between the IT Ministry and the Finance Ministry, the government seems to revise its target.

The total Budget estimates from communication services stands at Rs 48,335.33 crore, which also includes license fees and spectrum usage charges from telecom service providers.

The process of 3G spectrum allocation has been delayed in the midst of the differences between telecom and the finance ministry over the reserve price.

The DoT had fixed a reserve price of Rs 2020 crore, while the finance ministry had suggested doubling of the reserve price to Rs 4,040 crore.

As per the guidelines issued last year, the government plans to conduct the auction for 20 circles out of 22.

DoT has also signed an MoU with ministry of defence for vacation of 2G and 3G spectrum.

The auction process has been delayed several times since January last when it was first scheduled to happen mainly due to differences prevailing between the ministries involved in it over the pricing of the spectrum.

Besides, the high reserve price kept by the government also kept some of the major and foreign players away from the pre-auction meeting forcing the auction to be put off.

It should be noted here that the 3G mobile services would allow mobile users to access internet and download videos at a much faster pace on their handsets.