New Delhi: RailTel has announced its highest ever consolidated income of Rs 1166.05 crore in its 20th Annual General Meeting, the PSU said in a statement on Wednesday. This is a growth of 12.3 per cent over the consolidated income of Rs 1038.27 crore in Financial Year 2018-19. With this significant performance, RailTel has posted a profit before tax amounting to Rs 184.7 crore and net profit of Rs 141 crore during 2019-2020 fiscal on a consolidated basis. In the financial year 2020-21, total dividend payout for the company would be Rs 68.6 crore (interim and final) (including the interim dividend of Rs 20 crore) as approved by the shareholders in the AGM.
RailTel was incorporated in the year 2000 to modernise the existing telecom system for train control, operation and safety and to generate additional revenues by creating nationwide broadband and multimedia network, laying optical fibre cable using the right of way along railway tracks. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only compelled businesses across industries to turn to technology-enabled platforms for safe operations and business continuity but also accelerated the adoption of digital imperatives, said Puneet Chawla, Chairman and Managing Director, RailTel.
"With its pan-India high capacity network, RailTel offers services like MPLS-VPN, Telepresence, Leased line, Tower Co-location, data centre services etc. We have seen an increase in demand for our HD video conferencing service, e-office, Bandwidth usage etc during and post-lockdown. "The pandemic crisis has thrown up new challenges and has preponed the investment cycle in information and communication technology space and we intend to harness the same for our future growth," he added.
RailTel's retail broadband service RailWire have seen a growth in subscribers due to people working from home and schools and colleges starting online classes, he said. "We have created a RailCloud at our two-tier III certified Data Centres at Gurgaon and Secunderabad and also created a SOC (Security Operations Centre) to strengthen our network security which will ensure better service to our clients," Chawla said.