Power Grid receives unified license for telecom services

Government -owned Power Grid Corporation has received the unified license with national long distance and Internet service provider authorization to provide telecom services.

"Department of Telecommunication has granted a unified license to PowerGrid with national long distance (NLD) and Internet service provider-Category A service authorization for providing telecom services. The license is valid for 20 years," PowerGrid said in a BSE filing on Tuesday.

The State-owned company had two separate licenses of infrastructure provider-1 (IP-1) and national long distance-1 (NLD-1), which is due to expire. Now, the company has got a single unified license.

According to PTI, an official related to the company said that "Power Grid has been in the business of telecom infrastructure for business to business services and the company has company has also built its optical fiber network through overhead cables using its huge network of power transmission infrastructure across the country."

During April-December 2016-17, the company has received an income of Rs 371 crore from the telecom segment, which is 29 percent higher than the year-ago period.

The company is operating in all over the country with the network covering roughly 134,018 circuit kilometers along with 214 extra high voltage power stations.