Says Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director, Bharti Enterprises, "This will definitely impact the bidding in circles like Punjab, and UP (West), where the licences stand terminated, since there is no clarity as to whether the licences will be revived or not. We first have to be clear how many players are there in the market before we decide how much to bid."

But the DoT is unfazed by the argument and refuses to speed up its pace. Says a senior DoT official: "We will not link the fourth licence with the cancelled licences issue. That is a separate issue, which needs to be dealt with separately. And if this brings down the amount of money we get for those circles, then so be it."

Among the licences which currently stand cancelled are Koshika's UP (West), Orissa, and Bihar and the Punjab licence of Evergrowth Telecom Limited (EGTL). While the EGTL case is currently pending a final decision from the Attorney General (AG), senior DoT officials are still optimistic about Koshika paying the rest of its licence fee dues. It had earlier made a payment of Rs 100 crore, of the total dues of over Rs 500 crore.

However, industry experts feel that the chances of Koshika paying up the rest of the amount are bleak since the deals with Hutchison Essar for Uttar Pradesh (West) and Escotel for UP (West) have fallen through.

Meanwhile, Mr Mittal feels that with unlimited licences in CDMA, it does not make too much sense to be very aggressive in GSM. "You get Delhi CDMA frequency (basic telecom service licence) in Rs 50 crore, so how much will you pay for GSM?"