(13 May 2010 9:55 pm)

NEW DELHI: Mumbai continued to rule at the top of the table of bids for the 3G auction even on the 29th day, as the overall bids stood at just over Rs 150 billion after 162 rounds today.

Mumbai closed at Rs 28.25 billion, with Delhi at Rs 27.46 billion.

Karnataka closed at Rs 15.64 billion, with Tamil Nadu at Rs 14.36 billion, the rest of Maharashtra at Rs 12.33 billion, and Andhra Pradesh at Rs 12.19 billion. West Uttar Pradesh went up to Rs 4.47 billion, Kolkata to Rs 4.42 billion, East Uttar Pradesh to Rs 3.17 billion, Rajasthan to Rs 2.74 billion, Punjab closed at Rs 2.17 billion, Bihar at Rs 1.67 billion, Orissa went up to Rs 539.5 million, the North-East rose to Rs 379.7 million, Assam went up to Rs 372.3 million, and Himachal Pradesh at Rs 306 million.

The bids for some Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir remained unchanged.

The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat DB Telecom, Idea Cellular, Reliance, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Videocon Telecommunications and Vodafone Essar.

The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial 3G operations from 1 September.