Industry sources pointed out that six contenders, including two foreign players, had shown a serious interest in the Chennai licence. French telecom giant France Telecom is believed to have put in a bid, while Hutchison, which already has a presence in the other three metro circles, is also eyeing the Chennai circle.

The Indian contenders believed to have shown interest include Escotel, which is the leading operator in the Kerala, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (West) circles. Escotel is a joint venture (JV) between Escorts Ltd and First Pacific Company Ltd of HongKong. The BPL group, along with Birla AT&T and Tata are the other major contenders for the stake. While BPL is believed to have put in a bid in excess of $200 million, industry sources pointed out that Hutchison may have revised its bid to over $200 million. Hutchison officials, when contacted, refused to comment on the issue.

But the dark horse could be France Telecom which along with the other major French telecom players had expressed interest to set up operations in India sometime back.

The RPG group owns 68 per cent in RPG Cellular, while Air Touch Vodafone and Skycell Mauritius hold around 21 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively.The RPG group is offloading 17 per cent of its stake while Air Touch Vodafone and Skycell are offloading their full stake.

Industry sources told The Financial Express that discussions were on with the major bidders and a final decision in this regard would be taken in about two weeks time. RPG Cellular currently has a switch capacity of 75,000 subscribers and an actual subscriber base of 51,000. The company is currently adding four thousand to five thousand subscribers per month. It plans an ambitious switch capacity expansion to 1,25,000 subscribers after the JV proposal is finalised. The RPG group's cellular licence in Chennai is considered lucrative as the company has very good profitability with profits of more than Rs 1 crore per month, according to industry analysts.