Punjab Communications Limited (PCL) was incorporated in July, 1981 by the Punjab State Electronics Development and Production Corporation Ltd (PSEDPCL) to manufacture direct-to-line multiplexing equipment. Later, the Company diversified into the production of pulse code modulated multiplexers, trans multiplexers, voice frequency telegraphs, rural automatic exchanges, digital VHF radios, etc. The major users of these products are the DoT, Railways, Defence, state police organisations, ONGC, VSNL, etc.
The Company passed through a very good phase from 1981 to 1993, and came up with a public issue in October, 1994. Despite high premium, the issue was heavily oversubscribed. The Company achieved a record Turnover of Rs. 157 Cr. during the year 2001-2002, when its net worth was Rs.181 Cr. Thereafter the turnover of the Company was adversely affected due to industry wide shift from landline based narrowband communication to wireless and broadband. Realising this, it made attempts to broaden its customer and product base through tie-ups with foreign companies including Huawei Technologies of China for supply of DWDM equipment. Simultaneously, for improving bottom line, it went about developing its core markets of railways and power sector with own products. A year back, it has developed a new system for railways for communication between control office and way stations and executing projects along with MUX and SDH. The company empanelled OEMs of IP-MPLS for projects in railways and power sector.
The company has tied up with ECI Telecom, Israel for SDH range of products and with Reliance Tech Com, US, for a joint venture. PCL product range includes Line Transmission equipment consisting of 2 Mb/s primary Multiplexer, Higher Order Multiplexer, Optical Line Terminating Equipments, Power Line Carrier Communications, DTL FDM, Radio equipments consisting of 400 to 600 MHz & switiching equipments from 64 lines to 40000 lines.
PCL has renewed thrust on the areas of equipment manufacturing like Optical Fibre equipments, Electronic Switches, Vsat Equipments. It has introduced STMs & Optimux for Railways and is also planning to introduce STMs & SDH-DLC in BSNL in the near future. Puncom has tied up with Chinese company and made a joint bid for supplying CDMA equipment to BSNL. The bid is under evaluation.
PCL major client Railtel has planned to create OFC cable of about 37000 KMs in India,out of which 7900 Kms of OFC cable was already commissioned and 4700 Kms has been laid.
During FY 2023-24, Puncom has succeeded to obtain maximum volume of work from Railway, Power sector and from private parties. They have won 6 No of tenders from Railway. But they have not succeeded to obtain those tenders floated by Railway related to Bought out items and Outdoor OFC Work, Trenching, Laying and Termination of OFC. Component of Puncom make products was negligible in these tenders. In power sector like PLCC, Company obtained maximum work from private parties.(PLCC, LMU etc Puncom own products) but there are limited options for participation in these tenders due to lack of major device protection coupler. Beside this company has participated in new technology tenders of IP MPLS of Jabalpur Division. As Railways has shifted to voice communication on VOIP and backbone communication on IP-MPLS. Puncom has empanelled companies for integrated multiplexer and IP-MPLS routers to execute railway projects during the year 2024.