New Delhi, Mar 18: With the much awaited 3G spectrum auction set to take off on Apr 9, India's largest private telecom firm Bharti Airtel on Thursday, Mar 18 submitted its bid.

Airtel's submission comes just a day ahead of the last day for putting in applications to participate in the auction, which happens to be Friday, Mar 19.

While the government has allowed only three slots per state for private players across the nation, there is an exception of five states including Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, which will have four slots.

After the auction, the winning bidders will be allowed to offer 3G services commercially from Sep 1, 2010.

Vodafone-Essar, Tata Teleservices, Aircel and Reliance Communications (RCom) are seen as the other potential bidders and are expected to submit their applications soon.

The auction has been postponed several times over the last few months due to government's indecisiveness among other issues.

With the number of private players reduced from four to three in majority of the states, the government's expectations to attract Rs 35,000 crore from the auction may be let down.

OneIndia News