RailTel Could Earn Five Times Its Revenue In Next Five Years, Says CMD Sanjai Kumar

RailTel Corp. of India Ltd. could earn five times its revenue in the next five years, according to Sanjai Kumar, chairman and managing director of the company.

The company is getting into modern signalling projects, and is interacting with original equipment manufacturer partners—specially for Kavach, he told BQ Prime.

The other growth opportunity is Long Term Evolution for Railways, or LTE-R. RailTel has a strong foothold in the space, as it owns optical fibre-based communication, he said. It is also seeing a growth opportunity in artificial intelligence-based centralised traffic control in railways, in the next 2-3 years.

Beyond the railways, the company has partnered with more than 250 business associates for various projects related to information technology, health education, smart cities and data centres, Kumar said.

The total opportunity size of these projects is Rs 1 lakh crore for the next six to seven years, he said. Of this, Kavach and LTE-R constitute Rs 30,000 crore worth of opportunity.

On a conservative basis, RailTel has a capacity for Rs 4,000-5,000 crore worth of this opportunity, with a potential to scale up to Rs 10,000-12,000 crore on successful partnership with OEMs in Kavach, Kumar said.

RailTel will also be part of the Assam government's logistics depots as it involves information technology, Kumar said.

The company had exclusive rights to lay optic fibre across railway lines, but now it is opened to other telecommunication companies as well. It is very difficult to maintain or create a network of 61,000 plus route kilometres optical fibre cable along the railway tracks that RailTel has, according to Kumar.

RailTel is expecting Rs 10,000 crore of revenue in the next five years, considering all the opportunities it has, he said. The company is not considering any fundraising option for the next two to three years.