(THE NEWSMAN OF INDIA.COM)
“Sunday Special”
Puneet Chawla (IRSSE) 1985 batch relinquished the charge of Chairman & Managing Director in May 2022. After completing a remarkable tenure in RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.
He was appointed as CMD of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd. In December 2018.

Chawla has been recognised for his invaluable contribution and pioneering work towards creating a world-class organisation in the industry. During his entire service tenure he has been known as a visionary and has brought sea-change in the functioning of the organisation and project management and its delivery.

His ability to execute to perfection a wide range of end-to-end projects is well recognised in industry circles. Puneet Chawla had been instrumental in setting new benchmarks and is credited with adopting new technologies for developing new avenues of growth of the organisation.

A glimpse of notable achievements of Chawla’s tenure as CMD RailTel Corporation Limited.

• In the last three year the consolidated revenue has grown from Rs.1038 Cr in FY 2018-19 to about 1600+crore in FY 2021-22. The growth was at a CAGR of 16.2%. This was despite facing 3 pandemic waves across the country.

• Wi-Fi Services at Railway stations was stagnant at 715 stations in December 2018 and it has now grown to 6100+ stations. This has given immense visibility to RailTel.

• Implementation of NIC E-Office a paperless office solution was taken up in three phases. After successful implementation of the first phase before time, The Ministry of Railways reposing faith in RailTel allotted phase 2 & 3 to RailTel which were also completed before schedule. Today, the system has 1.4 lakh users in 216 establishments of Railways generating 22.5 lakh e-Files, 1.54 crore e-Receipts. This resulted in new business being generated from various PSUs and other Government organisations.

• Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) was also completed at a very fast speed in 697 Hospitals and health units over Indian Railways and was integrated with Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Railway HMIS was the first HMIS to fully integrate with ABDM.

• RailWire, RailTel’s retail pre-paid broadband service has 4.65 lakh customers as on date which has grown from 1.19 Lakh customers in March 2020, which is an increase of nearly 400% during tenure of Sh. Puneet Chawla.

• His efforts helped RailTel to get big chunk of orders both from Coal and Defence sectors. In 2021 RailTel bagged orders worth Rs. 588 cr. from coal sector and Rs 502 crores from Defence sectors.

• RailTel entered a new niche area of operation- Tunnel Radio Communication. As a result of efforts of Sh. Chawla, RailTel has already got orders worth Rs. 350 cr. for installing State-of-the-Art Integrated Tunnel Communication System for 5 tunnel communication projects of Indian Railways. These projects are very crucial and essential for safety of train operation and the technology being used is a first for Indian Railways.

• RailTel successfully delivered a project of artificial intelligence-based attendance system for 48000 government schools in 33 Districts of Assam which opened up new opportunities for RailTel to take up more AI based projects.

• RailTel debuted in Indian Stock market in February 2021 through its Initial Public Offering (IPO). RailTel IPO was oversubscribed 42.42 times.

• RailTel was ranked 124 in “Fortune India Next 500” list of Year 2022 improving it ranking from 191 in the previous year.

• He restructured the organization by rationalising the territorial offices focusing on the ease of maintenance of assets, and business potential of the area.

• Delegated more powers to the field level official and regional heads to give greater decision-making authority to the field officials to fast track project implementation.

• Cleared long pending promotion cases by promoting 470+ officials.

• Revised salary structure of contractual/ outsourced employees to boost employee morale.

• Amid the covid19 pandemic, RailTel organized vaccination camp for all its eligible employees and their family members based at Delhi NCR.

• In December 2020 Puneet Chawla, Chairman and Managing Director of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd. conferred with the ‘Eminent Engineer Award’ by the Institution of Engineers (India).

• In July 2021 Puneet Chawla, CMD, RailTel has been conferred with CMD Leadership Award in the 8th Edition of PSU Awards.

• RailTel was awarded ICAI Award for Excellence in Financial Reporting for 2020-21.

• RailTel bagged 7 Awards in 2021.The areas of awards include Telecommunication & Information Technology, Digital Technology, Data Centre, Digital PSU, Digital Security & Document Management.