Suggesting delinking of spectrum from telecom licences, the Economic Survey for the year 2008-09 has suggested auctioning radio frequencies for the forthcoming 3G mobile services.

"Auction 3G spectrum," the Survey, tabled in Parliament, said, adding that "the auctioned spectrum must be freely tradable, with capital gains on spectrum to be fixed under the Income Tax Act."

The Government is eyeing huge revenue from the auction of 3G spectrum and is likely to fix a reserve price of Rs 4,040 crore for pan-Indian spectrum. Going by this, the Government will get nearly Rs 30,000 crore from auctioning spectrum.

Giving suggestions on auction price, the Survey, which is a pointer to future economic policies, said the price can be fixed or be charged per unit of bandwidth per annum, or a combination of two.

Though the government had announced e-auction for 3G and BWA spectrum in August 2008, the process has not taken off as the Government is yet to decide the reserve price for the radio waves.

The survey has also suggested disaggregating spectrum from telecom licence.