Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), which operates as Vodafone Essar in India, is seeking to postpone the country’s 3G auctions, currently scheduled for December. The reason? The global financial crisis, reports the Economic Times. In a communication sent to India’s Department of Telecom (DoT)Emerging markets director Neil Gough said, “Mobilising financial commitments in the current environment is proving to be an extended process. Borrowers could expect the process to take three months from the beginning to end (some banks are currently taking in excess of one month to obtain their credit sanctions) with no guarantee of success. In this environment, we suggest that the department provides a very minimum of one-month’s notice of the specific date of the auction and preferably longer.” The ET also learned that four other unnamed operators are hoping to postpone the auction as well. It was estimated that the 3G licences could raise around 40,000 crore ($8.04 billion), though this no longer seems a certainty.