We Are Positive On The Telecom Infrastructure’s Growth Trajectory: Dinesh Kargal, Chairman And MD, Dinesh Engineers
What is your outlook on the telecom's infrastructure sector?
We are positive on the sector’s growth trajectory as India is home to an infrastructure network comprising over 450,000 towers and over 1.25 million kilometres of fibre. The Indian tower segment has also been on an upward trajectory owing to the growth in the telecom sector, grant of ‘infrastructure status’ and its unique business model based on ‘infrastructure sharing’.
The model is meant to drive efficiencies and synergies and the era of multiple operators allowed that to happen very successfully, leading to upfront savings in capex and time-to-market.
The Government of India (GoI) launched the ‘Digital India’ initiative in July 2015 with three broad targets: providing digital infrastructure as a core utility to every citizen, governance and services on demand as well as digital empowerment of citizens. One of the projects under the ‘Digital India’ initiative was ‘Bharat Net’, launched to deploy high-speed optical-fibre cables to connect 2.58 lakh gram panchayats across the country by 2018.
You are a passive communications-infrastructure provider. What does that entail? Could you tell us about your model?
We provide support services to telecom vendors. This includes project management to lay ducts and optical-fibre cables, construct basic transmission and telecom utilities, dark-fibre leasing, optical-fibre network construction, maintain ducts and optical-fibre project turnkey services to various telecoms network operators and to broadband service operators across the states of India.
We worked on laying fibre for many telecom companies since 2006. We have been licensed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and we have an infrastructure provider (IP)-I license. We maintain wired networks, and duct space for the purpose to grant on lease or sale on an IRU basis to the licensees of telecoms operators, ISPs, etc.
It requires multiple lines of experience in telecom and civil construction. How do you manage both?
I have over 27 years’ experience in civil construction and the telecom infrastructure sector. I have worked on laying around 35,000 km of cable and fibre. Some of these were highly challenging projects.
So, how many companies are contracting business to your company?
Almost all telecom companies are our clients. Our network infrastructure solutions are being used by Airtel, BSNL, Reliance Jio, Vodafone, Idea, Tata Communications, etc. This helps them to increase their networks’ bandwidth, maximize their network capacities, improve network performance and availability.
How do you plan to expand your business portfolio in coming years?
While our primary focus is on the development and execution of projects for telecom operators, we have also diversified into executing gas-pipeline projects. We have undertaken laying gas pipelines in Maharashtra through sub-contractors assigned to us by Mahanagar Gas. Our expertise in laying telecom cables has been a boon for us. We seek to capitalise on such opportunities by leveraging our established project-execution track record in our business. We will continue to bid for similar projects.
What are your plans to expand in the telecom passive-infrastructure space?
We are coming out with an IPO and we will use the funds to further expand our OFC network under IP-1 license. We are looking at expanding our subsidiary company into the ISP business. This could create synergies with our current business where we own the fibre network that can be used by our subsidiary.
