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Union Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has said that India's biggest spectrum auction, which will pave the way for high-speed 5G services, is likely to conclude by July-end and the rollout is expected by September this year. He said the Cabinet has approved 5G spectrum auction which is scheduled to begin from July 26, 2022.

Vaishnaw said ‘5G spectrum auction process has started on June 15, 2022. We should see the auction process completing by end of July, which is what our scheduled target date was. Telecom companies are already working in parallel to set up the entire infrastructure.’ The 5G services are expected to be rolled out by August-September. He said ‘Auction is in time. July was the timeframe for auction. August-September was timeframe to begin rollout.’

The minister further said the government’s vision is very clear that the figure of 100 unicorns in the country should now increase and India's position as the third-largest startup ecosystem should now further consolidate. He said ‘Our startups have started emerging from tier-two and tier-three cities. That process also has to go forward in a very big way. In future, the startups have to come more and more from smaller places’.