As India celebrates Diwali – the festival of lights which typically lasts five days – the radio industry is once again questioning the delay in the roll-out of Phase III of private FM frequencies, which the government promised would happen by October.

This latest phase of FM expansion in the country was originally planned to be rolled out in 2011, but has been delayed many times by successive governments.

Exchange 4 Media reports that two major issues are preventing the auctions from proceeding, the technical bid – which has been pending since September – and the signing off of recommendations by the media regulator TRAI.  That paper will need cabinet approval, which will still take time.

When completed, Phase III will see 839 new FM channels rolled out across 294 cities.

Private radio players will also need to migrate licenses for their existing 245 stations from phase II to phase III, but have been frustrated by constant delays.

The date for migration has also been delayed twice earlier and the latest deadline is now March 2015.

Following the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) recommendations, the government agreed to reduce migration fees and increase license duration to 15 years from the current 10 years.

However, it rejected another TRAI recommendation to reduce the base price for auction of new frequencies which many operators considered prohibitive.