PGCIL revenues soars 62% due to telecom business

New Delhi, Apr 17 (UNI) Spurred by its telecommunication business, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) today said its revenue increased to a whopping 62 per cent to Rs 125 crore during FY08.

This is the first time the Company's foray into telecom business garnered such a sizeable amount in revenues.

''The company is serving major telecom players in mobile and National Long Distance Operator (NLDO) segment and is also planning to tap customers in the entertainment and broadcasting industry,'' PGCIL CMD R P Singh told reporters here.

PGCIL, the central transmission utility of the country, owns, operates and maintains one of the largest power transmission (50,000 ckt kms) network in the world. The PSU has diversified into telecommunication and has National Long Distance Licence and Internet Service Provider (ISP) category A licence.

It has a nationwide backbone network to provide broadband capacity to various telecom service providers like ISP's, Cellular operators, Basic service providers, NLDO's, ILD's, Paging operators, Call centres, tele-medicine, Government Departments, Broadcasters, Corporates etc. for voice, data and video and also other higher value added telecom services The company has already established about 19,000 kms of optic fibre network connecting various cities while the bandwidth is provided for the links connecting all metros and 60 major cities and towns.

PGCIL is one of the few telecom players with a marked presence in remote areas like North Eastern Region, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, etc.

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