Mumbai, NFAPost: The Ministry OF Railway owned RailTel announced its highest consolidated income of Rs. 11,660.05 million in its 20th annual general meeting (AGM) held on 28th October, 2020 through video conferencing.
RailTel, a “Mini Ratna (Category-I)” Central Public Sector Enterprise is an ICT provider and one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country owning a Pan-India optic fiber network on exclusive Right of Way (ROW) along Railway track. The OFC network covers all important towns & cities of the country and several rural areas.
The stellar growth of 12.3% over consolidated income of Rs. 10,382.66 million in FY 18-19 said Puneet Chawla, Chairman and Managing Director of RailTel.
As approved by the shareholders, the total dividend pay-out for the firm would be an amount of Rs 680.60 million (interim and final) (including the Rs 200 million interim dividend) in the financial year 2020-2021.
Commenting on the development, RailTel Chairman and Managing Director Puneet Chawla said with its pan-India high capacity network, offers services such as MPLS-VPN, Tower Co-location, Leased line, Telepresence, data center services, etc. Also, during and post-lockdown, the PSU has seen a rise in demand for its High Definition (HD) video conferencing service, e-office, usage, bandwidth, etc.
“The Covid-19 pandemic crisis has thrown up new challenges and has preponed the investment cycle in communication and information technology space and the PSU intends to harness the same for its future growth. Due to people working from home and schools, colleges starting online classes because of the pandemic, the PSU’s retail broadband service- RailWire has seen a growth in subscribers,” said RailTel Chairman and Managing Director Puneet Chawla.
He further shared on his vision to strengthen its network security with an aim to ensure better service to its clients, RailTel has created a RailCloud at its two-tier III certified Data Centres at Secunderabad and Gurgaon as well as a Security Operations Centre, Chawla added.
RailTel was incorporated on September 26, 2000 with the aim of modernizing the existing telecom system for train control, operation and safety and to generate additional revenues by creating nationwide broadband and multimedia network, laying optical fiber cable using the right of way along railway tracks.
Presently, optic fiber network of RailTel covers over 55,000 route kilometers and covers 5,677 railway stations across towns and cities in India. RailTel believes that their experience and expertise in handling and undertaking telecom and ICT projects, has led them to be selected for implementation of various mission-mode projects for the Government of India including rolling out the National Knowledge Network, Bharat Net (formerly, the National Optical Fiber Network) and USOF funded optical fiber based connectivity project in North East India.
