I&B Ministry
Day 26: Jodhpur joins Rs 10 crore club, cumulative price crosses Rs 1150 crore in FM Phase III
NEW DELHI: With Jodhpur joining Varanasi in the Rs 10 core+ cities and the attention zeroing in on other cities racing to this mark, the cumulative winning price at the end of the 104th round on the 26th day raced up to Rs 1151.6 crore in the e-auction for the first batch of FM Phase III cities.
One channel in Guwahati fetched a price of Rs 4.11 crore as against its reserve price of Rs 37 lakh, registering a rise of almost 980 per cent. A few days earlier, Bhubaneswar had also set a record with a single channel getting the most competitive bidding increment-wise by going up nine times the reserve price.
However, there is no increase for almost a week in the number of provisional winning channels and cities – 94 channels in 56 cities – though the total bids surpassed the cumulative reserve price by Rs 692.7 crore or 150.9 per cent against the aggregate reserve price of about Rs 459 crore.
The cumulative provisional winning price has thus risen over the total reserve price of the first batch of 135 FM channels in 69 existing cities – Rs 550.18 crore – by Rs 601.4 crore or 109.3 per cent.
While Varanasi marched higher to Rs 14.94 crore and Jodhpur showed an increase to Rs 10.79 crore, Kohlapur was static with Rs 9.44 crore. Others in the waiting for entry to the Rs 10 crore club appear to be Kanpur, Rajkot, Amritsar and Aurangabad, all of which have got above Rs 6 crore each.
The Auction Activity Requirement rose to 100 per cent after the 59th round on 14 August, after being 90 per cent after the 37th round on 7 August.
However, there were still no bids for 13 cities namely Asansol, Gulbarga, Mangalore, Mysore, Puducherry, Rajahmundry, Siliguri, Tiruchy, Tirunveli, Tirupati, Tuticorin, Vijaywada and Warangal.
The demand in most cities fell by up to three per cent and by four per cent below the excess demand at the price in the 100th round in Hyderabad.
The Percentage Price Increment applicable for the Next Clock Round rose to five each in Shillong and Varanasi but was just one in Ahmednagar and Jodhpur. There was no change in the other cities.
The winning price has risen by more than 100 per cent above their respective reserve prices in Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kolhapur, Mumbai, Nasik, Patna, Pune, Rourkela and Varanasi, all of which got provisional winning bidders at prices more than double the respective reserve prices.
The provisional winning price in the top three cities reflected no change: Delhi at Rs 169.16 crore (for just one channel); Mumbai at Rs 122.81 crore (for two channels); and Bengaluru at Rs 109.25 crore.
I&B Ministry
MeitY & Reliance Foundation launch e-SafeHER cyber training for Women
Programme aims to train one million rural women in cyber safety over three years
NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has partnered with Reliance Foundation and C-DAC Hyderabad to launch ‘e-SafeHER’, a nationwide cyber security awareness programme aimed at empowering one million women across rural India.
Anchored under the Information Security Education and Awareness Programme, the initiative will focus on building digital confidence and safe online practices among women who are increasingly using digital platforms for financial transactions, livelihoods and essential services.
The programme will be rolled out through a community-led model, with training delivered via women’s self-help groups and grassroots networks. C-DAC Hyderabad will develop and localise training content, while Reliance Foundation will drive on-ground implementation using its rural outreach platforms.
Speaking on the launch, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology secretary S Krishnan said, “e-SafeHER is an exciting opportunity to bring together knowledge and collaboration to build a cyber secure Bharat. Through this initiative, women from even the remotest regions will be empowered to participate safely in the digital ecosystem.”
Echoing this, Reliance Foundation director Isha Ambani said the initiative aims to equip women with the skills needed to navigate the online world safely. She added that the goal is to enable one million “Cyber Sakhis” who can confidently adopt digital tools to improve their lives and livelihoods.
The programme will begin with pilot training in Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, before scaling nationwide through a phased approach. It will use multilingual content, audio-visual modules and blended learning formats to ensure accessibility and engagement.
Designed for long-term impact, e-SafeHER will be integrated into existing digital literacy and women’s empowerment programmes, avoiding the need for parallel infrastructure. The initiative also aims to drive measurable behavioural change, from improved awareness of cyber risks to safer digital transactions.
By combining policy, technology and grassroots reach, the programme looks to bridge not just the digital divide, but the digital safety gap, ensuring that inclusion goes hand in hand with security.
