Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (500108.BY) has received bids from two companies for pacts to offer third-generation mobile telephony services in areas where they don't have airwaves, Chairman Kuldip Singh said Wednesday.

The state-run company received bids from Aircel Ltd. and Tata Teleservices Ltd., and will decide on the pacts in a month's time, Singh told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference.

Both Tata Teleservices and Aircel--of which Malaysia's Maxis Communications Bhd holds 74%--couldn't be immediately reached for comments.

Tata Teleservices won 3G bandwidth in nine telecom areas and Aircel in 13 areas in a hotly-contested auction last year that drove up the total price of airwaves on sale to more than $15 billion.

Mahanagar Telephone, which has 3G spectrum in Delhi and Mumbai, said in December it expects each operator to pay about INR700 million a year to use its network in the two metropolitan cities.

-By R. Jai Krishna, Dow Jones Newswires; +91-22-6145-6121; ameya.karve@dowjones.com
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