Auction for 3G licence ended on Wednesday. Highly placed sources said that the bids for pan-India licence may touch 16,828 crore rupees. This the sources said is likely to generate a revenue of 70,000 crore rupees for the centre. This is double the amount earlier expected from the bidding that lasted 34 days. With the close of auction for 3G telephony spectrum, the government will start auction for Broadband Wireless Access spectrum in two days. Nine leading mobile operators, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, RCom and the Tatas, had entered the auction to grab spectrum for 3G services, which would allow users to access high-speed data downloads on mobile phones. Slots were only available for three operators in most states, while four were available in Punjab, Bihar, Orissa, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.