Mumbai: Telecom companies are expected to shell out Rs 1 lakh crore for snapping up spectrum during the forthcoming auctions and a little over one-third of this capex will be spent this fiscal year itself, said the report by rating agency Crisil. “In the current fiscal, the outgo towards spectrum acquisition will be Rs 37,000 crore of the Rs 1 trillion. Though this is lower than the budgetary estimates of around Rs 56,000 crore, this still is a significant outgo for an industry reeling under Rs 4 trillion of debt as of March 2016,” the report said.
The government plans to put on the block over 2,300 MHz of spectrum across seven frequency bands at the auction expected to be held over the next few months.