A. Raja in New Delhi on Tuesday. (PTI)

New Delhi, June 16: Telecom minister A. Raja expects to earn Rs 25,000 crore from spectrum auction to firms keen on providing 3G mobile services.

Raja today met finance Pranab Mukherjee to discuss 3G.

“In connection with the 3G and WiMax auctions, we assured (the finance minister) of an early rollout, an early auction and more revenue for the government,” Raja told reporters.

The minister is confident of completing the auctions by the end of 2009. Raja had also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week.

The auction, scheduled for October 2008, had been deferred thrice after the finance ministry sought some changes, including a hike in the base price.

The department of telecom (DoT) in its note on 3G to be placed before the cabinet soon wants the reserve price to be hiked to Rs 3,540 crore from Rs 2,020 crore.

The move is aimed at addressing the concerns of the finance ministry, which fears missing the collection target of Rs 30,000-40,000 crore from the auction.

The finance ministry is keen to partially bridge the government’s huge fiscal deficit through the auctions.

It had earlier demanded a base price of Rs 4,020 crore.

A quarter of the country’s 380 million mobile users have 3G handsets, but the operators cannot offer high-end services because of the unavailability of spectrum.

3G services allow users to surf the Internet and download contents such as music and video very quickly.

The DoT wants the cabinet to take a call on its 3G proposal, instead of routing the process through a group of ministers which will delay the process.