RailTel Corporation of India Limited has submitted its Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) for FY 2025-26 to the stock exchanges on July 28, 2026, in compliance with Regulation 34(2)(f) of the SEBI (Listing Obligations & Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015. The report, forming part of the company's Annual Report, is prepared on a standalone basis and covers RailTel's performance across all nine principles of the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC). The report has been signed by J. S. Marwah, Company Secretary and Compliance Officer (Membership No. FCS 8075).

Company Overview and Business Activities

RailTel Corporation of India Limited (RCIL), incorporated in the year 2000 with CIN L64202DL2000GOI107905, is a Schedule A Central Public Sector Enterprise with its registered and corporate office at Plate-A, 6th Floor, Office Block, Tower-2, East Kidwai Nagar, New Delhi-110023. The company operates 30 offices across India and serves international markets in 2 countries (Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, through MEA), with exports contributing 0.176% of total turnover. The company's paid-up capital stands at ₹320.94 Cr.

RailTel's business activities, accounting for 90% of its turnover, are distributed across five segments as detailed below:

The company's customer base spans Indian Railways, government organizations, ministries, educational institutions, corporate entities, retail customers, banks, NBFCs, and private enterprises across India.

Financial and CSR Disclosures

For FY 2025-26, RailTel reported a turnover of ₹4277.48 Cr and a net worth of ₹2261.61 Cr. CSR is applicable to the company under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013. During the year, BSE and NSE imposed a cumulative penalty of ₹65,91,480 on the company for non-compliance with requirements pertaining to an adequate number of Independent Directors on the Board and non-compliance of composition of different committees across four quarters. The company has written request letters to BSE and NSE seeking waiver of these fines, citing that the appointment of Independent Directors was pending at the level of the Ministry of Railways.

The company's MoU performance for FY 2024-25 was rated as "Very Good" by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE). Key financial transparency metrics are presented below:

Workforce and Employee Well-being

As at the end of FY 2025-26, RailTel's total workforce stood at 917 employees, comprising 595 permanent and 322 other-than-permanent employees. The company had no employees under the worker category. Of the total workforce, 834 were male (90.95%) and 83 were female (9.05%). The company also employed 11 differently abled employees, of whom 10 were male and 1 was female.

The Board of Directors comprised 8 members, of whom 1 (12.50%) was female. All 595 permanent employees were covered under health insurance and accident insurance, and 100% received performance and career development reviews in FY 2025-26. The overall employee turnover rate for permanent employees was 3.91% in FY 2025-26, compared to 6.36% in FY 2024-25. The cost incurred on well-being measures as a percentage of total revenue was 0.05% in both FY 2025-26 and FY 2024-25. Gross wages paid to females as a percentage of total wages stood at 8.83% in FY 2025-26, compared to 9.16% in FY 2024-25.

Environmental Performance

RailTel's total energy consumption for FY 2025-26 was 73161.71 GJ, comprising 13787.36 GJ from renewable sources and 59,374.35 GJ from non-renewable sources. Energy intensity per rupee of turnover stood at 17.10 GJ/INR in FY 2025-26, compared to 17.81 GJ/INR in FY 2024-25.

Total waste generated and disposed in FY 2025-26 was 25.93 metric tons (compared to 86.64 metric tons in FY 2024-25), primarily comprising battery waste of 21.9724 metric tons, e-waste of 1.253 metric tons, and paper & cardboard waste of 2.709 metric tons. RailTel also implemented an alien wavelength integration strategy to reuse legacy DWDM systems, resulting in CAPEX savings of approximately ₹40 crore and reduced e-waste generation.

Governance, Certifications, and Social Initiatives

During FY 2025-26, RailTel achieved CMMI Maturity Level 5 certification, strengthening its governance framework through process-driven operations, robust internal controls, and risk management. The company maintained key certifications including ISO 27001, ISO 9001, and Tier III certification for its data centers, and underwent cybersecurity audits by M/s E&Y and M/s Deloitte. An independent assessor, M/s VMC Management Consulting Private Limited, was engaged for assessment of the BRSR reporting framework.

On the R&D front, RailTel incurred expenditure of ₹11.29 Cr in FY 2025-26, achieving 105.51% of the MoU target of ₹10.70 Cr. Key R&D initiatives included transition to a cloud-native microservices architecture, development of a Smart Inventory System, deployment of a Threat Intelligence Dashboard processing over 4.58 million threat flows with a false-positive rate of 0.02%, and implementation of Single Sign-On (SSO) with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) across all organizational web applications.

In the social domain, RailTel's Akansha Super-30 initiative empowered 283 underprivileged students, achieving a 94% success rate in securing admissions to top engineering institutions. Procurement through the GeM portal amounted to ₹114.73 crore in FY 2025-26, representing 27.21% of total procurement of goods and services. Input material sourced directly from MSMEs/small producers increased to 66.83% in FY 2025-26 from 33.04% in FY 2024-25. Zero complaints were reported during FY 2025-26 across categories including sexual harassment, discrimination at workplace, child labour, forced labour, and data privacy.

WHAT HAPPENED

Railtel Corporation Of India has been awarded a confirmed work order worth Rs 43.8984 crore by Aig Of Police (Provisioning) Odisha. The scope involves the engagement of 170 experts, including IT Experts, Cyber Forensic Experts, and Finance & Account Analysts, for deployment in Cyber Crime and CC & EO Police Stations across Odisha. The order was disclosed on July 28, 2026, with an execution timeline extending until August 30, 2029.

ORDER IN FINANCIAL CONTEXT

At Rs 43.8984 crore, this single order constitutes roughly 7.6% of Railtel's average quarterly revenue of Rs 577.27 crore over the last four quarters. When added to the existing pipeline, the Total Disclosed Order Book stands at Rs 2,230.35 crore (sum of the 37 orders disclosed across the last 3 fiscal quarters shown in the table below). This backlog provides a coverage of 3.86 quarters of average quarterly revenue, offering significant visibility into future earnings. The book-to-bill ratio remains healthy, indicating that new order inflows are sustaining the revenue pipeline effectively.

COMPANY ORDER TRACK RECORD

Order inflow velocity has decelerated significantly from the previous quarter, which saw a massive surge driven by large infrastructure contracts. The current quarter's inflow is more modest but consistent with smaller-to-mid-sized service contracts. The current order value of Rs 43.8984 crore is consistent with the mid-range per-order size visible in recent history, sitting between the larger Rs 107+ crore coalfield contracts and smaller Rs 13-16 crore municipal or state department orders.

EXECUTION AND REVENUE QUALITY

The company's financial execution shows improving margin quality. Operating Profit Margin (OPM) expanded to 19.24% in Q2FY24, up from 15.86% in Q1FY24 and 13.96% in Q4FY23. Net profit also followed this trend, rising to Rs 68.20 crore in Q2FY24. There are no quarters with net loss or negative OPM in the recent data, signaling stable operational health.

REVENUE GROWTH - ORDER WINS TRANSLATING TO REVENUE

As Railtel has sustained order wins, with a notable acceleration in large-ticket infrastructure contracts in recent quarters, its annual revenue has grown from Rs 1,577.70 crore in FY22 to Rs 2,002.20 crore in FY23, representing a YoY growth of 26.9% based on the latest annual data. This historical growth trajectory validates the conversion of its expanding order book into top-line revenue.

WORKING CAPITAL AND EXECUTION CAPACITY

Railtel maintains a comfortable liquidity position with a Current Ratio of 1.39x, indicating sufficient short-term assets to cover liabilities. The Total Liabilities/Equity ratio stands at 1.03x, reflecting a balanced capital structure without excessive leverage. Operating cashflow was positive at Rs 229.50 crore in FY23, generating free cashflow of Rs 52.40 crore after capex. This demonstrates that the company is converting its backlog into cash efficiently, supporting its ability to fund ongoing working capital requirements for new orders.

WHAT TO WATCH

• Execution rate: Monitor the quarterly revenue run-rate against the Rs 2,230.35 crore backlog to assess if inflows are translating into booked revenue at the expected pace.
• OPM trajectory: Watch if the improved OPM of 19.24% in Q2FY24 sustains as the mix of orders shifts between high-margin managed services and lower-margin hardware/installation projects.
• Client concentration: Assess the percentage of the disclosed order book derived from top clients like Ministry Of Railways and Coal India subsidiaries; any single client exceeding 40% could pose concentration risk.
• New order velocity: With Q2FY27 inflow normalizing to Rs 127.58 crore after a record Q1FY27, observe if subsequent quarters see a return to higher inflow levels or if this represents a new steady state.

KEY OBSERVATIONS

• Margin expansion: OPM improved to 19.24% in Q2FY24 from 13.96% in Q4FY23, suggesting better cost control or a shift towards higher-margin service contracts.
• Backlog signal: Book-to-bill coverage of 3.86 quarters provides strong revenue visibility, reducing near-term earnings volatility.
• Valuation check (as of 29 Jul 2026): P/E of 26.5x against ROCE of 14.28%. At the time of this article, valuation was pricing in execution improvement not yet fully reflected in return ratios.
• Cash conversion: Positive operating cashflow of Rs 229.50 crore in FY23 indicates efficient working capital management despite heavy capex cycles.