Vodafone India on Tuesday said the Government should rethink plans to hold the next spectrum auction in February as operators could lose businesses in some of the circles.

The amount of spectrum being put up for sale is less than the demand which could lead to a situation that some of the existing players could end up not winning spectrum in areas where they currently operate.

Marten Pieters, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Vodafone India, said that though the company will still bid for the spectrum if auctions are held but it may lose businesses in circles such as Goa-Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

“We will still go ahead and bid for the spectrum. I don’t know if I can buy it or how the price looks like. But, ofcourse, we will bid for spectrum as we have major businesses in those circles. Maharashtra and Goa are one of the circles where we have more than ₹3,000-crore business and you don’t let go that easily,” he said on the sidelines of the half-yearly results announcement here. He said it is a tough situation for the telecom players and hopes the Government takes a right decision by not doing an auction because there is no new spectrum available.

The Telecom Commission had recently asked TRAI to review its recommendations related to the next round of spectrum auction, which was followed by objections raised by a technical committee of the Department of Telecom.

TRAI had also given a set of recommendations for auctioning spectrum in the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 800 MHz spectrum bands for the upcoming auction.

The top telecom operators including Airtel, Idea, Reliance and Vodafone had also written to the Communication Ministry saying conducting auction in an environment of spectrum shortage has serious implications on investments.

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