New Delhi, March 19: The government has received applications of interest to bid for third-generation (3G) and wireless broadband spectrums from 20 operators. Today was the last day to put in applications for the auction that starts on April 9.

A total of nine telecom majors — Bharti, Vodafone Essar, Idea, Videocon, Maxis-owned Aircel, Reliance Telecom, S Tel, Tata Teleservices and Etisalat DB — will bid for 3G spectrum.

Officials of the department of telecom (DoT) said 11 have applied for broadband spectrum. These include Bharti, Reliance WiMax, Vodafone, Tata Internet, Qualcomm and Tikona Wireless.

Augere Mauritius is the only foreign company to have submitted its application for broadband.

Uninor, which had earlier said it would bid for select 3G circles, decided not to bid now as it was yet to receive the 2G spectrum it had paid for.

Some global firms such as AT&T, Orange, Telefonica, Verizon, Sprint, France Telecom, O2 and Telestra had earlier evinced interest in bidding for 3G spectrum, but gave the auction a miss.

The government expects to rake in Rs 35,000 crore from the spectrum sale.

Three slots are on offer in each of nine category A circles —Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) and Kerala.

Three slots are also there for each of five category B circles — Haryana, Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh. There are three slots for three category C circles, which are Orissa, Assam and Northeast. Four slots are there for only four circles — Punjab (category A), Bengal (category B), and Himachal Pradesh and Bihar (category C).