NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Government of India decided on Tuesday to hold the auction of the spectrum for third generation (3G) mobile phone services in January 2009, as scheduled.

The decision was taken at a meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held with Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Communications and Information Technology Minister A. Raja in New Delhi.

In the closed-door meeting, it was also decided to increase spectrum user charges for all existing telecom operators, both using CDMA and GSM technologies. A one-time fee would be levied on GSM operators who hold second generation (2G) radio frequencies beyond the 6.2 MHz mark.

Vodafone had recently written to the government seeking a delay in auctions to early 2009, whereas Bharti Airtel wanted the 3G auctions to be held in time.

Earlier the government had told that the auction would be held by December 31, 2008.

The revenue from the AGR (Adjusted Gross Revenue) route would go up. The meeting decided to hike the AGR by one per cent for those operators who hold up to 8 MHz frequency. For those with more than 8 MHz, the AGR has been hiked by two per cent.

The meeting also discussed the issue of offloading of stocks by Swan and Unitech.