To discuss a roadmap for spectrum that remained unsold in the recent auction, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on telecom chaired by Finance Minister P Chidambaram is expected to hold a meeting on December 7, 2012. The meeting, which has been deferred twice since last month, is expected to discuss a roadmap for auction of unsold GSM spectrum in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Karnataka.

The EGoM will take decision on the reserve price that should be fixed for auction. It also has to decide on CDMA spectrum, which saw no participants due to the high reserve price. The spectrum was left unsold after government was able to auction only a part of the lot. Auction bid for GSM spectrum attracted bids worth only Rs 9,407 crore which is too low as against the minimum expected amount of Rs 28,000 crore.

However, the high-powered EGoM panel, headed by Finance Minister will also take a final call on Department of Telecommunications' (DoT) plan to conduct auction of 900 MHz bands in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata region along with 1,800 MHz bands. The proposal to auction 900 Mhz band was suggested after recognizing that the band requires less number of telecom towers as compared to that in 1800 Mhz band.