RailTel has completed work of connecting 146 locations of Northern Coalfields Limited, 240 locations of Eastern Coalfields Limited and 4 locations of North Eastern Coalfields on secured MPLS-VPN Network. The total work is valued at Rs1.37 billion which also includes the annual maintenance contract (AMC) of the network. These subsidiaries of Coal India were connected in the network before the project deadline.
RailTel provides secure connectivity for Coal India and all its subsidiaries including CMPDI across the country. RailTel is providing MPLS VPN connectivity at over 1400 locations for Coal India and its subsidiaries and the number is only growing. RailTel is in the final stages of delivering MPLS VPN connectivity of 447 locations of Western Coalfield ltd at a cost of Rs 1.50 billion (including AMC)
The coal sector is a crucial sector owing to its remote coal mines and geographical difficulty in connectivity. It was a major challenge for the coal companies to connect their mines and offices on virtual platforms for effective functioning. This MPLS VPN network is enabling the digitalisation of the coal sector by making it more efficient, transparent and contributing towards enhanced productivity by minimising the manual record-keeping work.
Commenting on the development, Puneet Chawla, chief managing director, RailTel, said, “Coal Sector is an important sector for RailTel’s since 2012-13 as the business from Coal India and its subsidiaries are growing each year. In this year only, from January 2021 onwards, we have received orders worth Rs 3 billion from various subsidiaries of Coal India. Currently, we have recurring revenue of around Rs. 1 billion from coal sector for the next 4-5 years and we expect it to grow given the digitalisation thrust across the sector.”
This MPLS- VPN network being built and maintained by RailTel is a crucial requirement for the implementation of a single instance ERP across Coal India Ltd (CIL)- christened ‘Project Passion’ including NCL Command Area. Aimed at creating one CIL, one database and one business blueprint, ‘Project Passion’ is going to be a key in digitising the coal sector resulting in process optimisation and business growth. This strong standard homogeneous MPLS-VPN network being built by RailTel is helping to synergise the total operational processes of Coal India.
Apart from MPLS VPN, RailTel also provides lease line services, internet bandwidth, CCTV implementation, HD video conferencing, LAN/WAN connectivity etc. to coal companies.
