The Empowered Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, has approved the much-awaited guidelines on telecom M&As and decided on the quantum of 2G spectrum to be auctioned in January 2014. In a merger, the resultant entity has to pay market rates for holding spectrum above 4.4 MHz that was allotted to the companies administratively at old rates. If two entities which are merging hold airwaves purchased through auctions, they will not have to pay market rate for spectrum adding that it has also been decided to put a cap on spectrum a final entity can hold in an area.