NEW DELHI: The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) today gave the green signal to the auction of highly awaited 839 FM radio channels in Phase III.
It is learnt that the EGoM unanimously decided to refer some issues relating to fees to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) which will be asked to give its responses according to a fixed time frame.
AROI sources told Radioandmusic.com that the FM Phase III auction is on a fast track mode now and is expected at the earliest.
Radio City CEO Apurva Purohit said, "We have been awaiting the implementation of the policy for a while and it is indeed good news that the EGoM has cleared the same. Expansion of FM will be beneficial to all stake holders; the players, listeners, advertisers and the government. Phase III will certainly push FM in the direction of growth and achieving its true share of eight percent in the advertising pie.We compliment the government and MIB officials on delivering on their commitment to the growth of the FM industry."
Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B) Secretary Uday Kumar Varma told Radioandmusic.com that it was expected that the Government will earn revenue of Rs 15 billion from the auction. The auctions for all the channels are expected to be completed within one year, he said.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Budget speech for 2013-14 had committed that the auction will commence in 2013-14.
He had said the government proposes to expand private FM radio services to 294 more cities.
After the auction, all cities having a population of more than 100,000 will be covered by private FM radio services.