India’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting issued the information memorandum for the e-auction of 135 private FM channels in the existing 69 cities of Phase II on Friday.

This is the first batch of channels to be auctioned after the government cleared the auction of phase III of FM channels and the migration of private FM licenses from Phase II to Phase III.

Private FM Radio operators with net worth from $80,000 (₹5 million) to $1.63 million (₹100 million) are eligible to participate, depending on the category of the city and town.

The cities include Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad and the reserve price for new channels shall be the highest bid received for that city in Phase II.

The auction will be conducted in four stages – prospective bidders will be invited to submit their applications, applications will be screened for eligibility, then eligible bidders will be invited to the auction stage and finally Letter of Intent will be issued subject to fulfilment of relevant conditions and payment of the winning bid amount.

Recently, New Zealand also held a successful e-auction for a new FM license for 100.1 in Christchurch.

NZME paid a record $7.8 million while bidding against MediaWorks for the license, which was sold through an online auction site, well above its reserve price of $750,000.