RailTel, a public sector unit under Ministry of Railways, is looking for business partners to establish Edge Data Centres — small data centres located close to end-users and devices — to accelerate digital transformation and delivery in rural and semi-urban areas.
This move opens up an investment opportunity of over ₹500 crore in the public-private-partnership (PPP) sphere, according to a statement issued by RailTel on Wednesday.
It is looking to establish these centres in Railway premises and on railway-owned land across 102 locations, especially Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns. “The prospective business associates or partners should be a company registered in India,” the statement said. It has floated an ‘expression of interest’ (EOI) inviting industry to partner in this exercise.
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RailTel provides information and communications technology (ICT) services. It is one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country, owning a pan-India optical fibre cable (OFC) network of 60,000-plus route kilometres or RKM along railway tracks, the release stated. The OFC network covers important towns and cities, besides several rural areas.
The capacity of each Edge Data Centre can be around 20 racks (5 KW to 10 KW each) to begin with, according to the plan. RailTel is also open to exploring variable rack and power densities depending on the requirement and availability of space, power and other factors at individual locations, the statement added.