Promising promised "reforms" in spectrum pricing, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday said auctions for the 5G spectrum will be held in the current financial year.

The government was aware and alive to some problems and challenges being faced by the industry, said Prasad at the India Mobile Congress 2019. "Spectrum auctions will be done this financial year... We are undertaking some reforms in spectrum pricing," he said.

He said the exact date will be announced later.

“As a government, we have sought to create a favourable atmosphere for our telecom companies to operate. Some of them have shared their concerns here. I can be very frank to you, as a minister of the government of India, they are working out that you remain a productive asset and not a non-productive asset but it is equally important for my part and I say both for the TSPs sitting here and also BSNL, MTNL which has equally done a good job in the last so many years particularly in case of natural calamities, in case of other pro-people services,” he said.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had last year recommended auction of about 8,644 MHz of telecom frequencies, including those for 5G services, at an estimated total base price of Rs 4.9 lakh crore, but the financially-stressed industry that is buckling under high debt, had argued that proposed prices are unaffordable and exorbitant.

Some industry players had pointed out that the average price of 5G band auctioned in countries like South Korea, Spain, the UK and Italy comes out to be Rs 84 crore/MHz, whereas Trai's recommended price for the same band is 5 to 6 times higher at Rs 492 crore/MHz.

(With inputs from PTI)