Department of telecommunication on Tuesday revised the time schedule for the process to appoint an agency for the e-auction for 3G and Broadband Wireless Spectrum in the 22 circles in the country.

The pre-bid conference for receiving the request for proposals for the designated agency was to start tomorrow. It will now start on September 8 and consequently all the earlier dates have been revised as per which the submission of the technical and financial bids will now be on September 22 instead of September 3, an official statement said.

"The revised time schedule would not delay the process. We had to made few modification in the original time schedule as a number of prospective bidders wanted more time," the ministry's spokesperson said.

The opening of covering letter and selection of bidders, who meet the eligibility criteria, is now also on September 22. Qualified bidders make presentation on September 24 and government will also open technical bids on this date.

The financial bids of technically qualified bidders will open on September 26 in lieu of 19 of that month.

The date of finalisation of bids will be September 30.

Earlier, Sidhharth Behura, the Telecom Secretary, had said, "Technical and financial details are being discussed. Once that is done, this e-auction process for 3G spectrum would be finalised by September 30."

Telecom Minister A Raja had announced on August 1 the details of the auction for services that will enable operators to provide facilities like fast internet access, video calls, games and a host of multimedia content on cell phones.

He said he expected the process to be completed by December. With auctions slated to start by October, government is bullish about meeting good response to the bidding process to raise up to Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion).