Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q2 FY2026 earnings conference call of Techno Electric & Engineering Company Limited, hosted by Asian Market Securities Private Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchstone phone. Also, before we begin, we'd like to inform you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as of the date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Suraj Sonulkar from Asian Market Securities.
Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thanks, Rayo. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Asian Market Securities , we welcome you all to the Q2 FY2026 earnings conference call of Techno Electric & Engineering Company Limited. We have with us today Mr. P. P. Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, and Mr. Ankit Saraiya, Director, and Shivani Chandak, VP, Strategic Initiatives and Investor Relations. I request Gupta ji to take us through the overview of the company's quarterly results, and then we begin with the Q&A session. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Shubha. Very good afternoon to all of you, and thank you for joining us to discuss Techno Electric's financial results for the quarter and the half-year end date: 30th September 2025. Before we begin, a short note on forward-looking statements. Any comments on our future outlook should be read in conjunction with the risks and uncertainties that affect our industry and the company. The key operational highlights of this quarter basically are a quick note on comparability. Our results are not directly comparable quarter-on-quarter because of the project-driven nature of our business and the seasonality of execution. H1 generally contributes 40% of the full-year revenue and H2 60%. This year, we are broadly in line with our guidelines, that is 40% of INR 3,500 crore financial year 2026 target.
We remain on track to meet our H2 targets, supported by a robust order book and clear visibility of further opportunities in our T&D segment. Given the sustained growth in our order book over the past two years and a positive market outlook, we are now focused on consolidating operations to improve efficiency and scalability. Coming to data centers, I'm pleased to inform, report that the phase 1 of the Chennai data center was inaugurated in August 2025, and the initial set of customers are being onboarded. The Gurugram data center, the first to come online under our RailTel EDC contract, has commenced commercial operations. We have also started implementation of a 16-megawatt gross load data center project in Noida by RailTel . This project is under a revenue-shared model similar to our Edge Data Centers. Financial updates.
It gives me great pride to share that we remain firmly on course to meet our financial year 2026 target, even though this quarter tested our entire patient or construction ecosystem, persistent aids across key regions for our projects located in Rajasthan, Ladakh, and Maharashtra, along with sector-wide hurdles including delayed site handovers, evolving customer requirements, and environmental challenges. Yet, through vigorous planning, disciplined execution, and focus on delivery and supply chain and climate change-related challenges, we not only stayed resilient but successfully achieved our quarterly goals. I will request my colleague Shivani, VP, IR and Strategic Initiatives, to take you through the financial results. Shivani, will you like to take over?
Thank you, sir. Thank you so much for the great start. I would now like to take you to our quarterly performance as well as the half-year end date: September 25 performance. Our revenue from operations for the six months—I will start with the six-month performance. Our revenue from operations stands at INR 1,352 crores, with an EBITDA of INR 194 crores, which is roughly 14.4% of our revenue. Our other income stands at INR 105 crores, PBT at INR 267 crores, PAT at INR 222 crores, which is 15% of our revenue. Our EPS for the six-month end date: September 25 stands at INR 21.21 per share, which is a 23.6% growth over the similar period last year. For the quarter end date: September 25, our revenue from operations stands at INR 839 crores, with an EBITDA of INR 115 crores. The EBITDA margin on our revenue is 13.8%.
Our PBT is at INR 144 crores, with a PAT at INR 123 crores, giving us a PAT margin of 13.9%. Other income during the quarter stands at INR 47 crores, giving us an EPS now at INR 10.61 per share for this quarter. EPS has grown around 34.6% over the previous year quarter. With respect to our liquid investment and cash, our cash balances stand at INR 2,600 crores, which is roughly around INR 225 per share. Our order book remains to stand robust at INR 9,957 crores as of September 25. We have received order work INR 400 crores post-September as of till date. Thus, we can say that we have an order book of roughly around INR 10,350 crores plus. With respect to L1 orders, we are currently L1 on one of the projects by Enerica [guess] at INR 300 crores and two by PGCL at INR 482 crores. So, roughly INR 782 crores, we are L1.
We have various bids in the pipeline and are confident to get additional orders for around INR 1,500 crores in the current financial year, which includes the new data center as well as edge data center projects being built by us. This will take our total order intake for the current financial year to around INR 3,000 crores. Thus, we will have enough orders to keep on the growth momentum. As you are aware, the company has achieved roughly 4X of our revenue growth in the past three years, with only modest rise in our manpower. We are now undergoing an extensive transformation and digitization drive to be data-driven for strengthening execution and to prepare for the next growth phase. Our focus remains on timely, high-quality project delivery, maintaining a INR 3,500-500 crores of top line over the next two years.
We continue to be selective in new orders in our focus segment while investing in upskilling our team, process efficiency, as well as continuing with our cash flow discipline to ensure sustainable and profitable growth. Now, we can now focus on the data center update. For the same, I would like to hand over to Mr. Ankit Saraiya.
Yes. As you are informed, our Chennai phase 1 was inaugurated in August 2025. The first phase is of approximately 5.6 megawatts, and the total capacity of the project is 24 megawatts, which will be commissioned in phases as we continue acquiring customers. The Gurugram data center under the RailTel contract has also been commissioned, and we have started onboarding customers at our Chennai and the Gurugram facility. Early adopters in Chennai include customers from the media and entertainment industry, domestic cloud service providers, and a few telecom players. At Gurugram, RailTel has consumed about 50% of the capacity, and the remaining capacity will be used to provide private cloud and managed services, which materially increases our rack monetization almost by three times of pure colocation.
The second edge data center in Mumbai is expected to be operational by the end of the financial year, and parallelly, we have started construction of a 16-megawatt data center in Noida under a similar partnership with RailTel as for edge data center and another 16-megawatt data center in Calcutta. In Chennai, we have also launched managed bare metal services and are receiving strong customer interest for this particular product. Our data centers, especially the Chennai data center, are natively designed for high-density power delivery on per-rack basis, and this, we believe, is a differentiated proposition for customers exploring high-density computing, which is quite relevant for deployment of artificial intelligence. We are in active discussion with multiple customers who require high-density computing and look forward to exploring those opportunities. Given customer migration timeline, setup requirements, and data center revenue, this year will be modest.
We expect the data center vertical to contribute close to about INR 125 crore in top line during the financial year 2027. Once the asset becomes revenue-accretive, its impact will be apparent in the financials and can be analyzed at that time. Phase 1 of Chennai has been capitalized at INR 470 crore, and further in the financial year, we expect to spend around INR 85-100 crore on our ongoing DC projects, which are under construction in Noida and Calcutta. On the outlook of the data center industry, India's data center industry is entering a phase of consolidation and maturation. According to a recent report by Cushman & Wakefield, the country added approximately 160 megawatts of new capacity in the last six months, taking the total operational capacity to around 1,280 megawatts. The industry continues to operate at a healthy utilization rate of 80%, reflecting sustained demand momentum.
The market currently comprises around 28 active operators managing over 130 facilities, largely concentrated across seven key metros, which are Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Noida, and Calcutta. Over the past two years, the sector has also begun expanding beyond traditional hubs, with tier-two cities such as Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Patna, Jaipur, and Chandigarh emerging as new destinations. Adding further momentum, Google's recent announcement of a multi-megawatt data center campus in Visakhapatnam, Patna, signals a new phase of large-scale investments. This move is expected to attract AI-focused global hyperscalers and technology firms seeking diversified and similar high-capacity locations across India, and this possibly is the inflection point of the industry. Given Techno Electric's expanding footprint in data centers across key Indian markets, we are uniquely positioned to deliver end-to-end integrated solutions.
As we transition from being primarily a developer to an operator, our focus is shifting towards high-value service-led offerings such as cloud, managed services, bare metal services, amongst others. This strategic pivot not only enhances our customer value proposition but also drives margin expansion and positions us as a differentiator, a full-stack player in India, which is rapidly growing in a digital infrastructure landscape. To cover the transmission industry outlook, I'll hand it over to Mr. P. P. Gupta.
Yeah. India's power demand continues to surge, driven by industrial expansion, data centers, and digitization. In May 2024, the country recorded a peak demand of 250 gigawatts, the highest ever. Yet, as generation rises, especially from renewables, the real challenge is transmission, moving power reliably across regions. India's grid spans 4.95 lakh circuit kilometers of lines and 1.36 million MPA of transformation capacity, with 118.7 gigawatts of international transfer capability.
You can refer to CA report June 2025. Still, over 50 gigawatts of renewable capacity remains stranded. The lack of evacuation infrastructure is posing all these challenges. To bridge this gap, the National Electricity Plan 2023 to 2032 calls for adding 190,000 circuit kilometers of new lines, 1.3 million MPA of transforming capacity, and an estimated INR 9.1 trillion investment, which will include HVDC corridors, STATCOMs, and renewable power energy evacuations. Policy momentum is strong. The General Network Assets Amendment in August 2025 streamlines grid assets and integrates storage and hydrogen projects. Updated right-of-way guidelines standardize compensation at 30% of land value in rural areas and 60% in urban areas, reducing delays in acquiring right-of-ways. Meanwhile, the ISTS charge waiver for co-located storage and the 30 gigawatt-hour battery storage medium scheme strengthen project economics and enable the storage-ready grid. The grid itself is turning smarter.
The CA's PLU deployment guidelines push real-time data visibility while utilities adopt AI-based predictive maintenance drones and digital twins for faster, safer operations. Together, these measures mark the start of India's largest-ever grid modernization. Transmission is now both the bottleneck and the backbone of the power system, crucial to unlocking renewable growth and ensuring reliability. With its strong EPC track record, disciplined bidding, and early move into digital grid solutions, Techno Electric is well positioned to benefit from this multi-year policy-backed transmission investment cycle. Further, with the emergence of large-scale transmission projects and growing interest from long-term sovereign and infrastructure funds, we are evaluating strategic partnerships at the platform level, at the asset level, to jointly bid for TVCP projects and also expand our participation in competitive opportunities.
Our segment, smart meters, as you all know, we are executing a 2.5 million smart meter order book out of which 50% stands deployed. That will be completed in the coming year, maybe by September 2026. The company's current priority is to ensure timely completion of all ongoing projects. Given the recent pressure on margins and new vendors, we have adopted a selective bidding approach and are not pursuing additional projects at this stage, focusing instead on quality execution and operational efficiency within the existing portfolio. Our ongoing FGD projects are progressing as per schedule. However, due to policies, inconsistencies, and delays in regulatory clarity, no new FGD tenders have been released in recent months.
The CA has come out with new guidelines classifying locations in A, B, C category, where A category will be focused first, which are within the semi-urban towns with a population of a million plus and projects within 10 km range. The company continues to monitor the situation closely and remains prepared to participate as and when new opportunities arise. None of our ongoing projects is impacted by these new guidelines. With this, I now would like that the floor be opened to further detailing or anybody having any more requirement of information sharing is welcome.
Sure. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from CA Garvit Goyal from Invest Analytics. Please go ahead.
Hello. I'm audio.
Yeah. You are audio, sir.
Good afternoon, sir. First question is on the guidance part. We are guided for 50 EPS for this year and 75 for next year. Just a confusion, if I look at the continuing operation consolidated EPS for first half, it is around 18.48. What is giving you the confidence that this year of 18.48 will be 50 by the end of this financial year? That is my first question, sir.
Yeah. You see our previous year's track record, as I said, quarter on quarter is not equitably distributed, number one. Number two, first two quarters are generally not more than 40%, at which you can see our INR 50 guidance. We are already exceeding INR 20 plus EPS already in first two quarters. If you see last year also, we are confident to achieve 50 plus as EPS for the current year.
When you mentioned 50 EPS, are you speaking about the standalone including continuing plus discontinuing?
Can you repeat your question?
When you are giving the guidance of EPS of INR 50, so are you speaking about the standalone numbers, sir?
Yeah. More or less standalone or consolidated, they are nearly same, with a 0.5%, 0.5 year on year.
No, because in first quarter, if I look at, see, here are two things. One is the continuing operation. Second is the discontinuing operation. So are we including the discontinuing operations as well while giving the projections?
You see, that is obligatory to include, number one, as a disclosure. We are confident to achieve 50 of an ongoing operation. You take it that way.
In the ongoing operations, if I look at the consolidated financial numbers that you released, for first half, we have done INR 18.48 EPS.
Yeah. You can take that 18.5, and it will be 50 by the year end.
Got it. Secondly, on the tax part, sir, I'm not able to understand the fluctuations in the tax rate. Can you put some color, spend some minutes, maybe the CFO, in explaining how the taxation is working for Techno Electric, sir?
Taxation is very normal. As per the rule, last time also I guided, you take on an average, in our case, tax applicability at 20%.
20% will be the tax rate for this year, is what you are saying?
Applicable on our pretax income, which includes other income also. What gets exempted is our dividend income. Dividend we earn as other income and dividend payout. Both stand exempted. So on the actual bottom line, you pay a tax at 25%.
Understood. So.
A bit of adjustment on depreciation as applicable.
Understood. So going ahead for full-year basis, it will be the uniform 20% rate waived? That's what you are saying?
You can take a thumb norm of 20%.
Okay. And regarding the order inflow, sir, earlier, as far as I remember, we were targeting around INR 3,500 crore order inflow for this year. Now, I think in the opening remarks, you mentioned we will be getting INR 3,000 crore. Are you people witnessing any kind of weakness in the order inflows in the industry?
Not at all. The question is we have sufficient business in hand. Want to have more juicy business? INR 3,000 or INR 3,500 is hardly a—it's only a number at the end of the day. Maybe we end up more than INR 3,500 also. Just as a conservative approach we have, we only guided you INR 3,000-INR 3,500, you may take it that way. Maybe it goes to INR 4,000. The more issue is execution today in the given challenges of supply chain and the climate change, readiness of the grounds to deploy facilities. Enabling these challenges are more than the capability to deploy them.
Execution, so you are doing very good. The thing is only the margins. What is your guidance for H2 margins, sir?
We have always maintained 13%-14% on an average and maybe a little more depending on the mix of the job. You can work on a guidance of about 14%, 13.5%-14%.
Got it. Got it. Lastly, on the data center part, Mumbai data center is further getting delayed. Earlier, we were speaking about December. Now, we are speaking about the end of financial year. Secondly, from Chennai data center also, the revenue is getting delayed as far as I am understanding. How do you people look at it? Still, we are maintaining the EPS target for FY 2027, or that will further maybe revise downwards?
Ankit, would you like to answer this question?
Yeah. So Bombay data center, as far as the schedule is concerned, we are still targeting it to be completed by financial year end. We were earlier targeting it to be completed by December end, but because of delay in handover of land for a particular facility, the target has shifted. Regarding the revenue is concerned, we are pretty much on target as far as Chennai is concerned, and we are confident that we'll possibly be able to deliver better than what is visible in the industry across. Anyway, those revenues do not have an impact on the EPS of FY2027 because we maintain that whatever EPS that we've spoken about till date is without consolidating the data center numbers.
One thing I need clarification again, also as mentioned, we have clarified 18 consolidated from continuing operation will get reached near to 50. When you say we will be consolidating data center operations, are we currently consolidating any core-related data center in our consolidated financial results, sir?
Yeah. In consolidation, we have to do, but there is no financial impact considered what we are projecting to the market. Fifty is purely out of the conventional business, ongoing business, as EPS. This year, we are not factoring any EPS contribution from data center. It is only value-added business for us as far as the current year is concerned. Next year, some EPS may happen out of it, which we have yet not accounted for.
Got it. Got it. And lastly, one thing, sir. We requested for visiting for our MTR data center, but we did not get a response to our emails. Can you connect us with the right people to whom or to which ID we have to request it?
Ankit?
Yeah, sure. We will connect with you once we have the database of joinees today. We will specifically connect with you, and we will arrange for a visit.
Okay, sir. That is fine. All the best for the future, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Ravi Naredi from Naredi Investments. Please go ahead.
How is the smart meter business going on? Whatever investment in funding is required, how do we arrange the funds in future? That is my question.
You see, as you know, we are generally a data work company. Presently, we are all funding it with our own resources, which we raised through the QIP. We trust we will be able to meet the obligation of 2.5 million meters of the ongoing job out of our internal resources.
Okay. When our work will be many more multi-fold, then how do we arrange the fund?
Look, we'll explore at that time whether we leverage it by borrowing or maybe monetizing the commission assets, some of them. We have not applied mine because at the moment, focus is 2.5 million meters job in hand and to be completed by September 2026.
Understand. I hope definitely in past, you did well. You also managed well. Sir, in data center, how much investment we did in Chennai?
Ankit, would you like to answer?
Yeah. The investment made in Chennai is approximately INR 450-470 crores.
INR 450-470 crores. What is the expectation for financial year 2027 top line?
It will contribute anywhere around INR 125 crore.
What is the bottom line here?
I would take it at approximately 55-60%.
55%-60%. Thank you very much, Ankit and Guptaji.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Sarvesh Gupta from Maximal Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for giving the opportunity and congratulations on continued strong execution. Sir, first question was again related to the order inflows. You partially answered it, but just wanted to understand it a little bit more. I think our order book has stayed constant at around INR 10,000 crore for many quarters now. One way to look at it is that we are proactively only not taking much orders because there is a limit to how we can execute these orders. The other thing would be that there is some slowdown in terms of ordering because we are seeing the government not prioritizing infra power and all these areas. In general, the kind of orders that we were witnessing two to three years back, right now, we are not able to sort of see that growth.
If you can throw some more light, I mean, through your answer, I came to understand that maybe once we reach INR 5,000 crore top line next year, we will have to again get aggressive about getting new orders if we were to grow from that level. Which of these scenarios is playing out, sir, if you can explain? Thank you, sir.
Sir, look, these are all perceptions, and realities are very different. Look, sir, the issue is basically deployment. Somebody wins a consortium, he has to deploy assets, he has to acquire right of way and land parcels. That is not easy in India. The challenge is on the ground. That is what I was sharing with you. Now, giving the order, you can have you are a preferred supplier or a vendor to Bombay, Adani, Sterlite, Timbridge, or anybody that you affect as far as station is concerned. The question is you can pile up any amount of number as an order. What I am talking to you is an executable business, and that is more than sufficient for next two years for us at the moment. We want to discuss business with you, which is executable.
Something business as an order and still not visibility of execution is merely a number. That has no value to you and me as a company. Please do not get confused. It is a long story in this market. Renewables is still a beginning, I will say. The whole ecosystem has to go through inert transition. Unless there is a proper grid, none of these projects are going to be successful. The present hindrance in the whole value chain in renewable energy is not renewable energy deployment or generation, but the grid. The grid is not available. Feeders are not available. They are not being made ready in time. That is the challenge country is facing at an overall level. It is a small story. We want juicy business. We want quality business, a business which can happen in time, and we can make good bottom line out of it.
Sir, on that, sir, basically, let's say in the second half of next financial year, we would have made another INR 7,500 crore revenues from the current order book. I think at that, so basically, the way I'm understanding is that if we have to grow 15%-20% FY2028 onwards, we can always get more orders. Right now, we are not taking as much because we can't execute if we take more.
Dear, I think you have not studied our three years track record. This one quarter performance of this company is equivalent to whole year performance of 2023. Please look in that. We mentioned in our presentation in last three years, we have grown four times. It means in one quarter now, three years back, we were doing in whole year. We are growing by more or less than 40-50% a year, year on year, year on year. Kindly do not classify generally and generically. That is not whole goods for us. We are a man-based industry. We are not something which is a machine-based industry like structure or like any other manufacturing transform reactors. I can create capacity and harness it. We have to execute by the very manpower we deploy at different pockets of India. You do not have an unlimited capacity.
You need a lot of discipline, integrity, a lot of processes and controls behind it. It has its own ecosystem behind it. We will continue to grow at 40% at least for the next two years, visibly. We have to get into a consolidation phase also to sustain that momentum. In our industry, why Techno is better than others? We believe in contract closing more than contract bagging as an order book. Closing and realizing cash is more important to us. Remaining debt-free is more important to us. Serving our obligation to our stakeholders is more valued in our company.
Understood, sir. Sir, that is well understood. Thank you for providing the clarification. Sir, one more question was related to this data center. Now we have seen some record-breaking numbers being announced by the big companies in the U.S. to set up data centers, for example, in Andhra Pradesh. Is there an opportunity for us to be a preferred sort of EPC player as they build out these data centers, or do we see that initially when they build it out, they will bring their existing partners in other geographies? How do we assess this sort of an opportunity, sir?
Ankit, would you like to reply?
Yeah. Yeah. You see, let me put it this way, that any company announcing an investment of close to $15 billion in a single location is almost like developing a city in itself. Everyone who has been part of the industry, whether as an EPC or an equipment manufacturer or a developer themselves, the rewards of such an investment percolate to each and every person sitting in the industry. I would look at it from a much larger perspective that this is the first investment that has been announced of this scale and may not be the largest globally as well. For India, it is quite significant. What it does is it has opened floodgates to many such more announcements to come because we have caught the attention of the globe.
Today it is Google, and tomorrow it will be OpenAI, and going forward, it will be many others. Somewhere or the other, the company stands to benefit from this kind of capital getting deployed in the industry. It is very difficult to today pinpoint whether that benefit will trickle down to us as an EPC, whether as an operator, or how. We can just think of where the industry is going. If a single player is announcing an investment of $15 billion, and even if, let's say, four more players announce it, you're talking about a number close to $70-$80 billion to be invested just on large-scale data centers. The rest is yet to come. It is a beginning, and it is a significant announcement for the industry. Let me say this is just the beginning of what we are seeing.
If we follow announcements in the U.S. and Middle East and other parts of the globe, we are still to catch up to those sides.
You see, further, you kindly note the most exciting part is the power and data centers are today two sides of the same coin. If $15 billion is happening as an investment, $5 billion will be on power infra if it is not on data centers and data infra. For Techno, there will always be a good chunk of work either as a power infra or as a data center. We are in a very sweet spot as a capability in India in this space.
Okay. And sir, finally, I think in one of the previous calls, you had mentioned that when it comes to renewable, the transmission requirement is almost four times of that of thermal. Given that, sir, do you see that as an industry, we have enough supply-side scale to match up to the kind of requirement that would be required here? At Techno, sir, how are we sort of increasing our own capability to be able to cater to that massive transmission-side demand?
You see, right now, it should be very clear to you what Techno Electric is good at and what it stands for. We are a zero manufacturing company. We only deploy facilities. So definitely, we work in partnership with the supply chain people. They are definitely at the moment also stressed, and they are booked heavily at the moment because of this very deployment of renewable power capacity, which is going at a rate of no less than 50 gigawatt a year now in the country. But simultaneously, more capacity is also being planned and added by the very manufacturers. So at the moment, if you ask me, supply chain is definitely a bit constrained in some products. But Techno, having a presence in this sector for the last four decades and relationship with all these suppliers, gives us a kind of edge over many other new players.
We are by and large able to manage our facilities here and there in time. Otherwise, how will we complete a project today in 9-10 months in Shikhar or Dosa or Khabda and many other locations, which we earlier used to do in no less than two and a half to three years? There are time pressures. Compression is happening in the schedules, and inputs are being arranged in time.
Okay, sir. Thank you, sir, and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, sir, and thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the transmission pipeline. I think, is it fair to expect that the H2 and blown H2 in F-27, the opportunity size remains sizable because the bidding for F-24 and F-25 for transmission were too high, and most of these projects haven't seen the tendering as of now? Is it a fair assumption?
I will say mixed. It is picking up, yes, because of Pakistan VAG or other priorities of the government. In between, things were a bit astray, but it is back on track now. Every week, one or other concession is being settled or fixed. I see things are being on track now, and the government will be able to meet its obligations by the year.
My question was more on the tending activities, tending from the Power Grid, tending from the private IBPs. Are you seeing those opportunities multiplying?
Absolutely. Absolutely, sir. They are.
Those guys are already sitting a large order book, right? Be it Adani, be it Power Grid. Both are very large project pipelines. Do you think that those pipelines will get awarded, and there will be higher opportunity for us as we enter the H2 and F-2027? Yeah. That's the question, sir.
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Mohit, you are perfectly right. We are in discussions with them, and we are already L1 in many tenders with Power Grid, but they generally do not announce it these days till they have fixed their own issues with the, I will say, with the grid coordinators, or they have acquired the SPV by then. We are working in close cooperation with Adani, Sterlite, as well as Power Grid, who are larger stakeholders in this sector and who are good at delivering projects. Because more important to us also is where you can do a project timely. That is very important in our sector.
Sir, on the smart meter side, of course, no bid has happened in the last couple of years. I think Tamil Nadu, there is a bid which they like to open. There is a bid in Delhi which they like to open, right? There is a Punjab. Are we looking at those bids, or are they not comfortable with these geographies?
Look, at the moment, the kind of aggressiveness we are seeing with the other bidders, we are definitely not comfortable at the rates quoted by others. Definitely, Punjab and Tamil Nadu are not the preferred locations for political reasons. Tamil Nadu is anyway going for an election now shortly. I do not think bids will happen so soon. Punjab, it may happen. I am not sure. At the moment, our focus is limited to 2.5 million meters completion and seeing satisfactory in operation.
On the data center and Chennai data centers, sir, have you started leasing out, renting out? Have you started booking or booking the rental income now, or do you think it will start from after this fiscal year?
We start booking our first revenue from Chennai data center from the month of November onwards.
Okay. I understood. Have you leased out the entire thing, or is still some part is pending?
No, we have leased out about, you can say, close to about 0.5 MW. Today, we are yet to lease out the remaining capacity. Having said that, we are in discussion with a couple of, we have a couple of discussions ongoing, which are seeming promising to lease out larger capacity.
Is it fair to expect that the entire capacity will get tied up in the next six months?
Yeah. You can say that.
Understood, sir. Thank you and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Before we move to the next question, we'd like to request participants to please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from Nikunj Banushali from Kosh Wealth Management. Please go ahead. Nikunj Banushali, you may go ahead with the question. There seems to be no response from the line of Nikunj Banushali. We'll move to the next question. The next question is from Ashwin Patil from Intelligent Prosperity Solutions. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. I had one clarification on the other income line item. Is it largely driven by interest income, subsidies, treasury gains, or any one of these items? Going forward, should we assume this rendered to be stable, or is it likely to fluctuate? Thank you.
No, we showed you at the beginning of the year, the income will be like of the last year. It will be plus minus INR 150 crore. It is like a treasury income to us. Also, it's a form of dividends and short-term capital gains. And somewhat out of interest income from the bonds, the money parked in bonds, at least AA plus or AAA credit. So it will be around INR 150 crore per annum.
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Shrey Gandhi from CR Kothari and Sons Stock Broking. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. My question is regarding the data center unit economics. If you could give details about the interest and depreciation, which we will see, and how it will be to fund the CapEx.
Currently, we are funding the CapEx for data center through internal accruals. For some time more, we will continue to fund it through internal accrual, and that would be the plan for at least the next year or two. Regarding the unit economics, as we have spoken about it earlier in our con calls as well, we can expect a top line of close to around INR 80,000,000 per megawatt and a margin of around 75% odd.
Depreciation, it will be depreciable over a 10-year period, if I'm not wrong, during the last call?
Yeah, it will be depreciable over, I think, it will on average come to 15 years.
15 years. Okay. And the EBITDA margin is including the power cost, or the power cost will be a pass-through, so we do not have any effect on our margins?
Power cost will be a pass-through in most cases. In case it is not a pass-through, then obviously it will have an impact on the margin because it will add to the top line and expense on an absolute basis.
Okay. My next question is regarding the Chennai data center that we are planning to commission in phases. Like you mentioned in the last call, or maybe it is last to last, that you are planning every six months, you are planning 6 megawatt installations. Are we still planning that, and what kind of CapEx are we looking for next two years?
I think in terms of Chennai, we will start our phase two in the calendar year 2026. On every phase, we can expect an investment of close to around INR 225 crore-INR 250 crore going forward. In total, it may not be the annual CapEx, but the total CapEx for each phase would be around INR 225 crore-INR 250 crore.
Okay. My second question is regarding the other financial assets which we have currently. What comprises of other financial assets? It has increased so much in this quarter. If you can give much light on that.
You have to create a category called AHM, and those are largely the unbilled assets belonging to your smart meters because the concession is of a long-term 10-year nature there. It can also comprise of certain work in progress of the ongoing projects. It has not gone up. It remains at around INR 1,100 crore as it was in the first quarter or year closing also. It is more or less the same. It will remain in that range only.
Okay. My last question is regarding our plan to fund $1 billion in data center. How are we planning the net equity mix in the longer time frame?
You can take so obviously, at some point of time, we will look at an equity partner and hopefully a strategic partner. Having come so ahead in the industry and now reaching a point where we are building more products and services to be served out of our data center itself, we would like to mature out our own selves over the next 18-24 months before we seek an equity partner. While that is on the equity side, I can say that in industry, on an average, we'll see a debt of close to around 55% and an equity of 45%. That is where the industry average will lie.
Okay. Okay. This is small. Okay. And then equity, INR 15,000-40,000 crores per SPUs.
We'll move to the next question. The next question is from CA Garvit Goyal from Invest Analytics. Please go ahead.
Hello. Can I know this?
Yeah. You are audible, sir.
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the follow-up, sir. Just one question on the working capital side. In the consolidated cash flow statement, there is one line item, other assets. That is basically reducing our cash flow from operating activities significantly. I just want the outlook on a full-year basis, like how are cash flow from operating activities likely to be at the end of March 2026?
It will be at the same level. Some will get built out. Some new one will come in. The number will remain more or less same.
No, sir. Speaking about the cash flow from operating activities, are you saying same level? What do you mean by same level?
Yeah. If you see the cash flow, we have capitalized our data center in September, and in wires of about INR 400 crore was pending to be paid by the subsidiary, which was paid out on October 15th. It is only an interest-saved correction. If you correct by that, you will find that book debts come to the same old level, INR 770 crore.
Okay. Maybe I will take that offline. I'm not able to understand it right now. Okay. That's fine. Lastly, on FY 2027, when we say we will be excluding data center business guidance from the total EPS guidance of 75, is it that in FY 2027, maybe the first year of its operation, are we expecting a negative PAT or negative bottom line from the data center operation?
We have not yet worked out yet that kind of details. I do not want to be speculative in this conversation. We will talk about it when we are closer to the situation in around Q4 discussions of the current year.
Understood. Sir, recently, there is a news regarding some renewable energy projects that did not find any PPA or PPA agreement. These projects are basically rejected. How do you see the impact of this thing happening on the overall renewable energy adoption in India?
That is what I am saying. Mr. Goyal, you have asked this question as a first opener of the questionnaire that the industry in renewable power is today stranded because of the evacuation not being in place, feeders being not in place, transmission being not in place. The PPAs are not getting signed because of that. Unless any renewable power asset gets a connectivity, do you think it is a bankable proposition or a marketable proposition? That is the challenge industry is facing today, that the transmission is a laggard in the value chain over generation.
These issues, since we are not planning the sector seamlessly, right from the location of the generation asset, the deployment of the generation assets, and then matching it with the transmission facility in the nearby area, and then the power flowing out to some distribution company or to industry, this will all, some mismatch will always happen with the time. It has started; it is only a beginning. Maybe presently, this may get covered up by the energy storage solution. As much, the grid needs the energy storage also. These issues are linked to our deployment inadequacies as a planning process.
Thank you very much. We'll take that as the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management team for closing comments.
Yeah. Thank you very much for joining us today and for your continued trust in Techno Electric. The energy landscape around us is evolving rapidly, and we stand ready to lead with innovation, discipline, and purpose. From strengthening India's transmission platform to building intelligent data center infrastructure, our focus remains clear to create lasting value through responsible growth. We believe progress is not about pace but about purpose. Choosing the right opportunities, executing with excellence, and growing with integrity, with a strong foundation and a focused vision, Techno Electric is poised to power India's next phase of transformation. I would like to thank you once again for your confidence and continued partnership.