TCIL pays Rs 43.86 crore dividend to government for FY26

MUMBAI: TCIL has put a little more signal into the government’s coffers. Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd (TCIL) has paid a dividend of Rs 43.86 crore to the Government of India for 2025-26, as the state-owned telecommunications and IT consultancy continues to expand its project footprint in India and overseas.

TCIL chairman and managing director Syed Tausif Abbas presented the dividend cheque to Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Union minister of Communications and DoNER, in the presence of Amit Agrawal, secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The payment follows a year in which TCIL reported operating revenue of Rs 3,335 crore and profit after tax of Rs 146 crore.

The company, established in August 1978, operates under the administrative control of the Department of Telecommunications, with the Government of India holding 100 per cent equity. Its latest dividend adds to a much larger payout history, with TCIL having paid cumulative dividends of Rs 4,146 crore to the government.

That cumulative figure includes a special dividend of Rs 3,728 crore paid in FY25. TCIL’s latest payment therefore comes against a longer track record of returning cash to its sole shareholder while continuing to operate as a profit-making Miniratna public sector undertaking.

Revenue has also expanded substantially over the past five years. TCIL said revenue grew 115 per cent, from Rs 1,596 crore in FY22 to Rs 3,442 crore in FY26, although the company separately reported operating revenue of Rs 3,335 crore for FY26 in the latest release.

Beyond the numbers, TCIL’s business has a distinctly international footprint. The company has executed telecommunications and information technology projects in more than 70 countries, with current overseas operations spanning Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Mauritius, Bhutan and Nepal.

Its international work also includes the Pan Africa e-Vidya Bharti and Arogya Bharti Network project, which operates across more than 15 African countries. The project forms part of TCIL’s wider portfolio of telecommunications and IT assignments outside India.

At home, the company is involved in several high-value government projects covering connectivity, defence and digital infrastructure. These include the Defence NFS project, Navy OFC projects, USOF-funded APSFL and Telangana Fiber projects, BBNL VSAT and BharatNet Phase III in the North East.

TCIL is also executing the BSNL Super Edge Router project and the State Wide Area Network in Bihar. Its project portfolio further includes data centre projects for the Indian Coast Guard and the state of Chhattisgarh.

The breadth of these assignments places TCIL across several layers of India’s digital infrastructure, from telecommunications networks and fibre connectivity to defence communications and data centres. Its overseas operations add another dimension, with the company taking Indian technical and project capabilities into markets across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and beyond.

The Rs 43.86 crore dividend is therefore a relatively small piece of a much larger financial and operational picture. With revenue having more than doubled over five years and projects continuing across more than 70 countries, TCIL enters FY27 with both a growing project portfolio and a sizeable history of dividend contributions to the government.