Power Grid eyes 30% rise in revenues from telecom business

MUMBAI: State-run Power Grid Corporation ( PGCIL) aims at a 30 per cent increase in the revenues from its telecom business in FY 12, a top company official said.

"We are expecting a 30-40 per cent increase in revenues from our telecom business," Power Grid Director (Personnel) V M Kaul told reporters here.

Last year, the company clocked a revenue of Rs 187 crore from its telecom business out of the total revenue of Rs 8,388 crore.

"At present, the telecom business contributes nearly 2-3 per cent of our total business. But we are looking at a significant growth in the revenues from this business in future," he said.

Power Grid, which entered the telecom business a few years back, has a telecom network of about 21,000 kms through optic fibres providing connectivity to all metros, major cities and towns in the country, thereby establishing marked presence in the remotest areas.

The Corporation which has over 1 lakh towers has so far leased 800 towers and has floated tenders for another 30,000, another official said.

Power Grid has entered into infrastructure-sharing agreements with a telecom infrastructure service providers for using power line towers to mount telecom antennas in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

According to the company, the telecom backbone network is ready for 16 wave-lengths (scalable to 32 wave-lengths) of 10 G/ 2.5 dense wavelength division multiplexing ( DWDM) and Synchronous Transport Module ( STM) 16 system.