NEW DELHI: The government will begin the auction of mobile telecom airwaves for the first time in five years from Monday as around 2,250MHz of spectrum — worth nearly Rs 4 lakh crore at just the reserve price — will be sold across various bands. The designated 5G sale will happen later.

The auctions will enable companies such as Airtel, Vodafone Idea<\/a> and market leader Reliance Jio<\/a> to augment their telecom holdings. They will also buy back replacement spectrum for certain airwaves, the term of which is ending soon.

The Union Cabinet<\/a> had given an approval to the muchawaited sale in December last year and the cash-strapped government — battling fund shortage and a widening fiscal deficit on Covid relief measures — would be hoping to mop up funds for the exchequer through the process.

Telecom companies, however, have made it clear that their bidding may not be that enthusiastic as they remain financially challenged and would mainly look at filing gaps in their spectrum holdings. Many analysts have raised doubts about the sale in the 700MHz<\/a> band, which they say is lucrative for deployment, “but remains expensive” (it remained unsold in the previous round in 2016).