Reliance Jio Infocomm has put in Rs 14,000 crore as earnest money deposit (EMD), more than half of the amount submitted by the bidders for the 5G spectrum auction, official data showed on Monday.
The second highest amount of money as EMD has been put in by Bharti Airtel Limited at Rs 5,500 crore. Vodafone Idea Limited has deposited Rs 2,200 crore as EMD for the 5G auction.EMD amount of Adani Data Networks stands at Rs 100 crore, as per data released by the Department of Telecommunications.
EMD amounts give a broad indication of the company's plan for picking up the spectrum in an auction. The EMD determines the eligibility points, through which telcos target a specific amount of spectrum in a given circle.Four firms are in the fray for the 5G auction.
These firms are - Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, Bharti Airtel Limited, Vodafone Idea Limited and Adani Data Networks Limited. Put together these four companies have deposited Rs 21,800 crore as EMD. More than half of this amount is by Reliance Jio Infocomm, which is the largest telecom operator in India.
With its EMD at Rs 14,000 crore, the eligibility points assigned to Reliance Jio Infocomm for the auction stand at 1,59,830, DoT data showed. Eligibility points allocated to Bharti Airtel stand at 66,330 and for Vodafone Idea Limited it stands at 29,370. The eligibility points allocated to Adani Data Networks Ltd are the lowest at 1,650.