The second day of auction for 2G spectrum started at 9 am on Wednesday, on the back of demand for spectrum in the Bihar telecom circle.

The government is expecting Rs 20,000 crore from the second round of spectrum auction later this fiscal, Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar said on Friday. "At this base price, we would expect approximately, I would say, somewhere around Rs 20,000 crore for all the spectrum in 1800 Mhz and 900 MHz that is put on the auction block," Chandrashekhar told reporters on the sidelines of the India Telecom 2012 event organised here by FICCI.

Telecom spectrum auction opened on Monday to a lukewarm response with key circles such as Delhi and Mumbai finding no takers in the initial rounds. There were no applications for pan-India spectrum, the base price for which was set at Rs 14,000 crore that the industry said was too high.

The much-awaited auction for 2G spectrum that was freed following the cancellation of 122 telecom licences started at 0900 hrs on Monday. The government expects to raise around Rs 40,000 crore through the auction.

Blamed for a number of issues in the multi-crore 2G spectrum scam, former Telecom Minister A Raja on Saturday expressed desire to appear before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) as a witness to tell his side of story.

The government will begin the auction for telecom spectrum on Monday through which it is hoping to meet Rs 40,000 crore revenue target. The auction for the airwaves or frequencies freed from the cancellation of 122 telecom licenses, belonging to mainly eight companies, by the Supreme Court in February, will start at 0900 hours on Monday.

CBI is likely to file this week its chargesheet in connection with alleged irregularities in telecom spectrum allocation during the tenure of NDA government involving two telecom service providers along with officials of Telecom Department and the then Telecom Minister Pramod Mahajan.

A Delhi court on Wednesday refused to entertain a complaint seeking registration of an FIR against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran for their alleged role in the 2G scam.

Telecom operator Videocon is believed to have withdrawn its application for bidding of airwaves in the 800 Mhz band which is used for CDMA operations.

Delhi government on Wednesday approved a proposal to provide three additional subsidised LPG cylinders annually to around 3.56 lakh poor families identified under Kerosene-free Delhi scheme.