KEC International Ltd (NSE: KEC) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Jan. 30, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Vimal Kejriwal — Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director, Executive Director
Rajeev Aggarwal — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Balasubramanian — Analyst
Vaibhav Shah — Analyst
Parikshit — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Sam sa. Ram. Sam. It. Sa. Sam. Ladies and gentlemen, you are connected to KEC International Limited Earnings conference call. Please stay connected, the call will begin shortly. Thank you. It. Sa. Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to KEC International Limited Q3FY26 earnings conference call from the management we have with us today. Mr. B. Milkej Rewar, Managing Director and CEO and Mr. Rajiv Agrawal, CFO of a company. As a reminder, all participants line will be in listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing10.0 on your Touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand over the conference to Mr.
V. Mel Kejriwal. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Vimal Kejriwal — Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director, Executive Director
Thank you. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Q3 earnings call of KEC. Our apologies for a little bit late release of results because the board meeting just got over. I’ll start with a snapshot of our financial performance for the quarter and the nine month period followed by a few key business highlights. We have delivered record revenues of rupees six thousand one crore for the quarter reflecting a strong growth of 12% year on year led by healthy execution momentum in our TND business across India and International for nine months. FY26, with a revenue of rupees 17,116 crore, our growth stands at 14%.
Aligned with our strategic focus. The TND segment’s contribution to overall revenues increased to 67% up from 57% in nine months last year. Our EBITDA has grown by 15% in Q3 and 22% in nine months. EBITDA margins for Q3 have increased by 20 basis points year on year to 7.2%. Visa was 7% last year. The performance on EBITDA margin front reflects slower progress in water projects, closure costs associated with the completion and delay of rods for Metro projects and delay in settlement of some of the claims. Notwithstanding the same. The ebitda margins for nine months have increased by 50 basis points to 7.1%.
Visa with 6.6% last year. Our interest expenses as a percentage of revenue have reduced by 30 basis points in Q3 and by 40 basis points in nine months, resulting in an interest cost of 2.9% for both Q3 and nine months. We have achieved a healthy operating PBT growth of 37% in Q3 and 53% in nine months. Operating PBT margins increased by 60 basis points in Q3 to 3.6% visa based 3% last year and increased by 80 basis points in nine months to 3.4% visa based 2.6 last year. We have achieved an operating PAT of 171 crores in Q3 and rupees 457 crores in nine months.
The growth in operating PBT and PAT continue to outpace the EBITDA growth. The operating CBT and FAT numbers do not include the exceptional provision of 59 crores made during the quarter in line with the new Labor Code. In terms of order intake, we have achieved YTD order intake of Rupees 19,300 crores. Notably, a substantial 70% of this order intake has been secured by our TND business across India and the international markets. Additionally, we hold L1 positions of Rupees 4500 crores primarily in the TND segment. We have a strong order book of rupees 36,725 crores as on date.
Including the L1 position, our order book and L1 stands at over rupees 41,000 crores. Coming to our debt levels, our net debt including Acceptances stand at Rupees 6806 crore as of 31st December. Visa Vist 5575 crores on 31st December 24th. The increase in debt level is on account of strong revenue growth, increase in strategic inventory due to benign commodity prices, muted payments in the water projects and spillover of certain large collections which happened in the current month. The debt levels have already come down by almost 300 crores in January 26th and are expected to normalize by March 26th.
End. We continue to maintain our watch on working capital and remain committed to balance sheet strengthening coming to specific businesses. Our TMD business continues to be the primary growth driver, delivering revenues of rupees 4161 crore, a remarkable growth of 31% for the quarter. This stellar performance is backed by consistent execution across geographies on the order intake. The business secured YTD orders of over Rs. 13,500 crores across India, Middle East, CIS and the Americas. In India, several large intrastate transmission projects earlier executed by state utilities have transitioned to the TBCB route, driving heightened participation from private developers and utilities.
This shift has led to a notable increase in private sector involvement with six new private players entering the TBCB segment during the year. As a result, the market share of private players has expanded significantly to 75% this year compared to 45% last year. Aligned with this Structural change, We continue to steadily increase our order intake from private sector clients. During the quarter, the business has secured its largest ever Order of Rupees 1050 crore in India TND from a reputed private player for a 765kV transmission line and a 765x400kV AI substation. In international, the business continues momentum with multiple L1 orders across the Middle east and Africa.
We expect these L1s to get awarded in Q4. In SAE, the business achieved revenues of Rupees 525 crores for the quarter, reflecting a robust 70% growth. During the quarter, the business secured a few large power supply orders in Mexico US Signaling a clear uptick in the North American market. On a YTD basis, SAE has secured order inflows of rupees approximately 1250 crores for the supply of towers, hardware and poles across the North America and Brazil. Consequently, the business now has a robust order book and L1 position exceeding rupees 2,600 crores, providing strong revenue visibility going forward.
Capacity expansion initiatives are progressing well. Following successful capacity enhancements at our plants in Dubai, Jaipur and Jabalpur, the expansion of our beautifully facility in Nagpur is expected to be completed by March 26. We have also invested small amounts for expanding our hardware manufacturing facilities in Brazil. These expansions will further strengthen our ability to cater to rising demand for transmission infrastructure across domestic and international markets. The overall tender pipeline in TMD continues to be healthy in both domestic and international markets. In India, peak power demand continues to rise with record highs recently and sustained growth expected driven by economic expansion, electrification and changing weather patterns.
With transmission increasingly emerging as a critical bottleneck amid rising grid congestion, there is a heightened policy and execution focus on strengthening transmission infrastructure supported by the government’s emphasis on renewable evacuation corridors, green transmission and inter regional interconnections. This is translating into a robust multi year pipeline of opportunities for the sector. I’m actually pleased to announce that yesterday we commissioned a large transmission line, Ahmedabad now sorry antl from Ahmedabad to Navsari, a large part of it. We also commissioned the Ahmedabad substation and the power is flown to Navsari substation which has also been built by us and as of today almost 2,600 megawatt of power started flowing in this line mainly from the Gouda Renewable Park.
Coming to the international front, the market outlook remains strong and encouraging. The Middle east continues to be a key growth engine with significant opportunities across Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman. the same time, we are witnessing a clear pickup in opportunities across Africa and the CIS region. Africa, which experienced a slowdown post Covid, is now seeing a gradual revival with multiple tenders coming to the market. In addition, demand across the Americas remains robust, particularly in Brazil, Mexico and the US driven by requirements for towers, hardware and poles. With an order book and L1 position in TND of over rupees 26,000 crores, we are confident of delivering sustained and significant growth in this business.
In civil, the business continued to strengthen its order book with multiple orders of over rupees 4000 crores in the building and factories vertical from reputed clients. During the quarter, the business has achieved success across hospitals, thermal power projects, metals and mining and residential building segments including an order for additional civil and structural work of 150 megawatt thermal power plant from a prominent private sector player. Two orders from a leading steel manufacturer for execution of upstream and downstream facilities, A luxury villa development project from one of India’s largest real estate developers. The business is also well placed for securing orders for a few greenfield hospital projects.
The business delivered revenues of rupees 923 crores for the quarter. The revenues could have been higher but for labor constraints, delayed release of workflow in some projects and slower release of payments in the water projects. While the labor situation is gradually improving, it remains below optimal levels. We continue to adopt a calibrated approach to execution in water projects given the current payment scenario in this segment. With a large order book and L1 position of over rupees ten thousand crore, gradual improvement in labor availability and expected collection from water projects, we expect that the civil business will deliver good growth in the coming quarters.
The transportation business recorded revenues of 349 crores for the quarter. During the quarter, the final section of The Ahmedabad Metro Phase 2 in which Casey executed the Balask Tracks BLT works was flagged off by the Honorable Prime Minister. The business continues to focus on the train collision avoidance system TCAS projects under Kavach. In partnership with our JV partner, the business has successfully implemented Kavach across 611 route kilometers and is currently deploying the Kavach system on an additional 1836 route kilometers of the railway network. With the government’s continued focus on railway safety modernization and indigenization, initiatives such as Kavach are expected to see wider deployment across the rail network over the medium term.
We expect to secure additional orders in this segment. The business is also well placed to secure orders in the automatic block signaling ABS segment that increase the railway and capacity through automation. We are actively pursuing international opportunities, especially in the Mena region with an order book and L1 of over rupees 3000 crores, our priorities remain clear. Accelerate completion of ongoing projects, optimize working capital and selectively bid for high quality margin accretive opportunities in both domestic and international markets. Our cables and conductors business has achieved healthy revenues of 556 crores, a strong growth of 37% year on year.
The profitability of this business is also witnessing consistent improvement driven by better product mix and cost optimization. Notably, it has also achieved its highest ever profitability for the nine month period of this year. The business continues to witness steady inflow of orders for supply of cables and conductors. Our capital investment for E beam and electromeric cables is progressing as planned and we expect production for electromeric cables to commence by the end of this financial year. Our renewable business has achieved revenues of rupees 122 crores. In a significant development, the business has forwarded into the wind energy segment with a breakthrough order for a 100 plus megawatt wind project in southern India from a renowned private developer.
The execution of the existing 500 megawatt solar projects in Karnataka and Rajasthan are progressing well towards completion within this quarter. We continue to bid for select opportunities in solar, wind and bess. We are well placed to secure a few more orders in renewable. In Q4, the oil and gas pipeline business has secured its third international order for a pipeline laying project in the Middle East. Given the subdued domestic tender pipeline and heightened competition, the business continues to strategically focus on expanding its global footprint. We expect the upcoming union budget to introduce supportive measures that further accelerate infrastructure development, particularly in power transmission, renewables and transportation segments.
To summarize, with a strong focus on execution, expanded capacity, a robust and diversified order book and L1 of over rupees forty one thousand crores and a current tender pipeline of over rupees one eighty thousand crores. Particularly in TND and civil, we are well positioned to deliver sustained profitable growth in the coming quarters. Thank you. We are now open to take questions.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press STAR and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets for while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Bala Subramanyam from Ariant Capital. Please go ahead.
Balasubramanian
Good evening sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Side on the transportation side we have seen pressures on the revenue pad as well as the auto inflows. Also new test and I just want to understand how this segment is being repositioned and what is the strategy to retain momentum. I think earlier we mentioned about focusing on technology projects like tcas and strategically away from low margin frameworks. I just want to understand how the mix will change over next three to five years time frame. And if you could share more details about this transportation paper.
Vimal Kejriwal
The strategy is that we will focus on completing the existing legacy projects so that you know we can realize our cash flows and also the various claims which we have in the system. We have clearly defocused on the civil projects in the country because of intense competition. In some tenders we have seen 13 in one of them I saw 41 bids coming in so mainly from local, I’ll say road contractors because of slowdown in the NHEI business. So our focus has been on as I talked about Kavach. So some more orders are expected to become in Kavach maybe within the next couple of weeks or so.
Then we are focusing on PSI which is power supply as well as on the automatic signaling abs. Those are three, four areas where we are working on. On the metro side we are looking at BLT as well as power supply and also third rail and electrification. The other piece here is on the international. We have started bidding, I’ll not say aggressively but we started bidding especially in the MENA region. So a couple of countries are where we have a large PND presence and focus are the countries where we are bidding. So looking at the revenue and order book we have very clearly and I’ll say it’s a very conscious decision to degrow the business for a couple of years till we get out of the old projects.
This year we are I think L1 or orders of around 700, 800 crores already we may get a few. We are L1 in a large private sector railway siding contract also. So the focus is that we stay away from projects which require large block work of working on existing high density railway lines. We do expect that in the coming budget there is a talk of high speed new high speed railway corridors coming which would be new lines and all that. Not on existing which is where you require blocks. So we are waiting and watching. We are not very aggressive on this business at least for the next one year.
Balasubramanian
Okay sir that currently we are executing five HVTC projects and also one on another project from the private developer. What is that total HVTC opportunities in India and internationally and how we are going to take a leverage on that.
Rajeev Aggarwal
I don’t think I have that number on what is the total opportunity as such. But there is a talk of I think two more HVDC projects coming in India, one in the south and one in Rajasthan and there are, there is a large equity project under bidding right now in Saudi. Typically each one of them is around 25,000 crores. Typically I don’t know the exact value of each of this project but they will be. So if you add three of them they’ll probably be 75,000 crores or more.
Balasubramanian
Okay, my last question. Civil only data center pipeline is 2000 crore and how much we have bidding entire pipeline or like what is that expected wind rate and margin profile for data center project and how it is aligning with our building and factory side. And secondly I think we have entered wind energy with 100 plus megawatt order and we also bidding for solar and storage battery storage side. And currently the government is planning to open up with opening up for China or other countries. How this landscape is changing especially for renewables and how the landscape will change especially for renewables the next three to five years.
Vimal Kejriwal
So if you look at China, we are an EPC player and we don’t compete. No Chinese episodes do not compete. In India we are actually happy if the government opens it up because it eases out the supply chain constraint about which I have been talking every quarter. So to me as an epc, I’m very happy if that happens because today a typical substantial project which used to take 12 months or so is now going into 18 to 24 months. So if things start happening we, we are generally happy about it. Especially on the TND side we don’t take any module responsibility.
So whether the Chinese modules, they are coming, whether they continue to come on will not have any impact. As far as we are concerned on data center we have executed five data centers till now and we are actively bidding for more data centers. I think the issue in data centers what we are finding is that most of the data center orders are getting split across, you know, various parties. So there is no. Although the entire cake appears to be very big, but what comes in bids are very small slices of it. So we are looking at it and choosing and deciding what segments to play.
Right now we are bidding for in some cases for Civil, in some cases for Civil plus mep. We think it is going to be an exciting sector but as of now there have been large announcements but all these need to get translated into hardcore tenders and all that. Right now there are very few tenders open in the market. But I think it will open up. So I don’t think we are too much worried about will grow. Definitely.
Balasubramanian
Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Got it. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vaibhav Shah from GM Financial. Please go ahead.
Vaibhav Shah
Yeah. So firstly on the civil side what would be our JGM exposure right now in terms of order book and receivables?
Rajeev Aggarwal
So our total exposure in terms of order book would be roughly around 1400 crores. Okay. And AR would be around 900 crores which was I’ll say virtually similar to last year except it’s gone up by 75, 800 crores or so. So as mentioned earlier what we have been doing is that it’s almost like a cash and carry. So whatever money we get and we are exposed to two states only and we’ve generally been getting money from both of them, not to the extent we want them to pay but whatever they pay. That is a sort of, I’ll say investment we are doing in the projects.
Vaibhav Shah
So if you look at our order backlog of 11,000 crores from the civil segment if I remove this 1400 crore it will be roughly around 9, 9 and a half thousand odd crores if I remove the JGM part. So is that portion which is roughly around 10, 11% of the order book impacting the execution so much or there’s Some other reason.
Vimal Kejriwal
it will impact? Because what happens is in the civil piece generally the execution cycle is pretty, pretty fast. So if some orders don’t get, let’s say don’t get kick started early and early part also what happens is you do rafts and other things. So the revenues in the early part of projects are pretty high. So since some of the projects have got delayed because of non availability of fronts it has impacted plus I think I’ll say 400, 500 crore of impact would be from our water business. So in all probably if you just want to take a ballpark number, maybe civil could be probably a thousand crore impact on the revenues.
And in terms of the overall number.
Vaibhav Shah
Okay. Sir, for the entire year last year we did around 4,500 crores of revenue from civil. So this time we may see a decline of roughly 50%.
Vimal Kejriwal
I don’t know the exact number. There will be a marginal decline. Okay. I don’t think it will be a significant decline but there could be some marginal decline.
Vaibhav Shah
Okay. So secondly on the margin front we are, we are guiding for a 100 improvement on a Y OI basis for the entire year for FY26. So the. The first nine months margin is roughly around 7.1%. So how do you see this target for the entire year now?
Rajeev Aggarwal
I think the margins will definitely come down the way things are happening. Okay. Because of the slowdown in water which is obviously much higher margin and some other newer projects. Plus I think the way we had expected that our legal where arbitrations and conciliation etc. Were going on. So since they have been taking much longer than what we have. So we have also based on prudence have started providing for some of these numbers which earlier we had thought that we will be able to get the orders and close the books accordingly. So I think right now if you look at the numbers probably will be anywhere between seven to seven and a half.
Okay. We are hoping that it goes to seven and a half. But today I don’t have the confidence value that will be seven. It should be between the two numbers. So I think what we have achieved till now 7.1 and maybe there could be some improvement in Q4. But overall numbers could be between 7 to 7 and a half.
Vaibhav Shah
And 27 28, it should be around 9 which we’re targeting earlier or I.
Rajeev Aggarwal
Think it’s too early right now to say. I don’t know whether we can maintain nine or not. But I think it’s a little bit early. Maybe when we do the annual accounts we’ll be able to look at the numbers. But it’ll definitely be better than what we are achieving this year.
Vaibhav Shah
Lastly on the debt side, we maintain our target of roughly 55 dead by the year end.
Vimal Kejriwal
I think so. I think honestly we have been talking intelligence. Should we try to reduce it further? But I think 5,500 is a safe number. We will definitely achieve that number.
Vaibhav Shah
And the working capital days.
Vimal Kejriwal
110 to 115 days. What Rajiv is saying.
Vaibhav Shah
Okay. Thank you sir.
Vimal Kejriwal
Thanks. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Parikshit from HDFC securities. Please go ahead.
Parikshit
Yeah. Hi sir, My question is on debt. So I mean if I see copper on quarter, the execution has largely been flat. And despite that our debt has gone up for any particular reason that is going up. Given that we have not seen any ramp up on the execution on quarter, on quarter basis.
Vimal Kejriwal
I think what has happened in quarter and quarter, quarter and quarter, I think it’s roughly around 300 crores. 300 crores debt. I think the only reason why that happened was that there was some larger receivables from Saudi which got moved into the first week of January. So we have already bought our debt down by 300 crores. So we are actually at now back at the September numbers.
Parikshit
Secondly, I mean on the margin we have reduced our guidance, I mean last quarter also 8 to 8.5%. We have said 8 and now we are going to 7, 7 and a half percent. I know there are pressures but just on the commodity increases which we have seen in copper and other largely in copper. So how does it impact our margins for next year? How are we covering the risk on the commodity side?
Vimal Kejriwal
So. So Parishit on copper we hardly have any exposure except in our cable business. And Cable business is 100% hedge. So there we have a very clear policy that the moment we take an order we hedge it. Okay. So as far as copper is concerned I don’t think we have any exposure. Maybe something minor here on there but you can take it as good as not having an exposure. In fact for me if my cables team is able to get more manufacturing clearance and all that the revenues may grow because. Because then it will be at a much higher copper than what it was last year.
So I don’t see any impact of copper on my numbers.
Parikshit
Just coming back a little bit more on the margins. We have been highlighting every quarter that now the legacy projects are low margin, legacy projects getting over. So now what is come back and hitting us again on the margins. And do you think that there could be this margin will continue for some more quarters?
Vimal Kejriwal
So I think parishit, what is happening is that we have been honestly very a little bit unhappy with the delays in the closure. We were expecting that gradually projects will get closed like we have closed. At least I’ll say 10% of our railway projects overall numbers. I’m just saying another 20% will close in this quarter. So what is happening? And I’ll give a simple example. We take a project and we expect that the project will be closed because the client has agreed for descoping a part which is not executable. Now the client comes back and says no, no, I want you to execute.
So you are stuck there for other six months. So things like that are happening. I have got three metro projects where the viaducts are ready. CMRS has been done ready for commissioning. Unfortunately, unfortunately they have not been inaugurated. So you continue to keep on, you know, maintaining them and spending money. 15, 20 crores a month. Okay, they’ll all get, get into claims but they claim right now we have made provisions for that. So unfortunately there are issues which are, which are hitting, which are something which you would not have predicted saying that this will what will come and ultimately we are running doing around 270, 275 projects.
So some way or the other you keep on, you do get some surprises. I don’t think we are happy downgrading our I’ll say estimates but what is happening is what is happening. So we had to tell, you know, this is what is there. When last time we said 8% we were very pretty confident that we’ll achieve 8% but now seeing what has happened and the delay in some of the projects which are like as I said, water. Water is a double digit margin project. Now if it’s not executing that’s impacting some of the newer projects which have got delayed.
Like I’ll give simple example, I’ve got couple of projects in NCR now because of you know, a little bit of some earthquakes which came and all that. The seismic zones have been changed, the design parameters have been changed. So all those projects have been on hold because the developers are redesigning all the projects. So there are various reasons. One is a little bit delay in closure of old projects and also a delay in startup of more profitable projects where the revenues in some cases have come slower than what we were expecting. Basically those are the two reasons of that.
However, I would like to assure you that our new orders are the current order book is reasonably profitable which gives us the confidence for these numbers. The other thing, what we should also look at is one is EBITDA but should also look at PBT and all that. So if you look at that interest cost while it has not come down in absolute numbers but the percentage it has been going down. So at the end of it 30%, 40% increase is happening below the line. Also the other piece I think is we discussed civil and I did say that we are run short of thousand crores of revenue because of various reasons.
This has also led to an under recovery of overheads. That’s another one piece which is happening for which now we are running a special program and all that to see how do we cut down costs etc. But it’s taking its time. I hope I’m clear.
Parikshit
I think one way you are getting impacted on railways and civil where your working capital is blocked and your debt is not enough and secondly the margin pain points continue in these two segments, right? So on a normalized basis. So one, if one has to see. So if these two headwinds are behind us. So what kind of margins on the core business one should look at while marketing the margins?
Vimal Kejriwal
So if you’re asking for margins on TND then then they are. The question was not very clear to me. But if you’re asking a margins on PND then we’ll be in VR in double digit margin.
Parikshit
So my question was excluding all the same kinds of headwinds related to Metro projects and some part of the civil project. So on a core business, what kind of margins would have reported? If headwinds are not there
Vimal Kejriwal
then you. Will be closer to 9 to 9 to 10%. No, very clearly.
Parikshit
And when and when do you expect to start hitting two quarters away from that?
Vimal Kejriwal
If you are looking at 9 to 10% then I can always say FY28. That’s why the earlier question I did not answer for FY27 what your margins are but I said will definitely be higher than this. Okay, nine to ten. I, I need to clean up that entire, you know, closure of all the projects of, of mainly more of railways and also some part of the civil Metro projects which are there, which are now getting commissioned. So I think that will get cleaned up. So I think by FY28 will definitely be at. I don’t know whether it’s 9 or 10, whatever number we are talking but next year it will be better than what we are talking with this year.
We said seven to seven and a half next time clearly saying will be better than that number. I think in a couple of months we’ll be able to give exact number of what we expect to achieve. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit from PEL Capital. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir, thank you for the opportunity. Hi sir, again you did explain very in detail what are the reasons for reduced margin guidance. Just wanted to understand what is holding back your clients to do this delay. You gave an example of three Metro projects getting delayed because the dispatches are not happening. Just wanted to understand with your customers, is it the issue of some issues which are letting them delay the projects? What is happening at the customer site?
Vimal Kejriwal
So Amit, there are various reasons but if you look at two or three reasons, one, I just now said that in Gurgaon and all that because of the zone changes, what has happened and the design, the safety parameters which the government has notified many of the projects, especially on the high rise residential have to be redesigned with much, much larger foundations, etc. Or the alternative for them is to cut down the number of floors, etc. Which obviously no developer wants to do that is one reason. The other reason in couple of cases right now we have in two cases in Mumbai is the developer has not been able to acquire the plot fully which is now under acquisition that has delayed by I’ll say almost 2/4 the work front.
In another another industrial project. I think the client wanted to change the technology because he got a much I’ll say cheaper and a better technology. So he has put the project on hold saying that let me redesign that entire project and come back and talk to us. That was I think 300 crore project. It’s on hold completely. So there are different reasons. And when I say due to delays in workfront it is always on account of client. I am not saying that on my account it is delayed. In my account it is my problem. These are all various reasons which are happening.
Or I’ll give another example. I talked about grid, grid, gridlock and all that we have got in at least I’ll say four or five projects in transmission which are moving at I’ll say a snail space because row is not available. I have. I have one project where the substation land is not available for last eight, nine months which was there in our revenue targets and which was a higher margin. Now 8, 9 months the land is not available. So we are stuck in terms of the growth projections and the margin projections which we had given.
I hope I am clear Amit on these points.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, sure sir. About the prospects of 1 lakh 80 thousand which you highlighted. What is the portion from Middle east some color on segment wise prospects out of this one like 80,000 and domestic versus international.
Vimal Kejriwal
Give me a minute, I’ll just give. It to you. Roughly if you look at transmission it would probably be around 40 50,000 would be out of for transmission across India. International Middle east would be probably around 15,000 or so crores. Okay, then you have railways then you have civil is a large portion almost 60,000 crores including 20,000 from international and renewables would be around 30,000 crores. That’s a broad numbers.
Unidentified Participant
Right. So with this prospects, this I’m assuming is for next 12 to 18 months. So what one should think of this year I think order intake has been reasonable with 19,000 already won and close to 5,000 L1 any color on the order inflows and conversion in next 34 quarters.
Vimal Kejriwal
So typically this is not for a 12 to 18 months. This is more tenders which are in the pipeline announced. While I’ll say more for six months sort of thing rather than 12 to 18 months. So the order pipeline will. And you know if last one year we have been seeing the same order pipeline give or take 5000 crores here and there. So this, this almost remains like a constant. Whatever tenders come in, new tenders keep on getting added. Typically if you look at it in transmission we have been having a success ratio between 10 to 15%.
Okay. And for other businesses it would, it would be actually lower. Okay. Renewable would be much lower than that. And civil is also. So we would look at maybe somewhere on 30, 35,000 crores should be our order intake next year. We are not yet firmed up because the budgets are getting firmed up. But I think we should be looking at around 35,000 crores.
Unidentified Participant
Understood. So lastly again on margins. So I think TND you said it’s kind of doing double digit. Just wanted to ask on water, is there any hope that this can again come back after maybe a couple of quarter. What is the situation in terms of your collections? What is the collection pending? And we are seeing many players going deliberately slow. Any hope in terms of budget for water or these things getting resolved in next maybe couple of quarters for water.
Vimal Kejriwal
So Amit, during the, I’ll say, let’s say take the nine month period, I don’t know the exact number but I think we got around 600 crores of cash flow. Okay. And we did a 600 crore of project. So around 50, 60 crores, 70 crores. Okay. Let’s see what happens in this budget. Whether the allocation goes up from the 65,000 crores which they did last time. They spent only 25. I was told I don’t know how much they have spent. Actually let’s look at what, what, what announcements they have in the water for water. But typically most of this money has finally come from the States.
So we do expect if you extrapolate the same this then by next year we should be able to get out of our water projects. Because this year also by the end of the year we’ll probably do around 800 crores of revenue. Okay. So let’s keep our fingers crossed that you know some more money can come. Optimistically I think if the same thing continues and within 12 to 15 months we should be able to close all our projects. Okay.
Unidentified Participant
Understood sir. Lastly on update on SA Towers, how the performance has been there in terms of balance sheet and order wins for.
Vimal Kejriwal
That SAE has been doing well. We have an order book of roughly order book plus 11, 20, 600 crores. Okay. That’s almost two years of turnover for them. So I, I don’t think we are worried. We are margins have been more than have been double digit easily. Orders have been very good, especially from the North America market. And also what is happening on the balance sheet is that whatever profits we are making are using for repayment of debt. Debt has come down, I think last few years by almost 200 crores and it will continue to, you know, come down by 150 crores every year.
So I think that that business is doing very well.
Unidentified Participant
Right sir. So just one clarity on Chinese. You said the Chinese infect should benefit, so I just wanted didn’t got that point. So is it that some components which are not getting manufactured or there’s a shortage where the projects are getting stuck and Chinese import there will help if you can where that that’s going to help?
Vimal Kejriwal
Yeah, I don’t think I want to get into that naming because all my OEM friends will come and fight with me. But I think basically what is happening is that this is also putting a lot of pressure on the, on the players in India because till now they think that so, so some imports, I think I heard that they’ve started coming in. I’m not sure about it, I just. That’s hearsay. But clearly I think the delivery timings we are seeing are improving in India. Okay. And for me as an epc, it helps me because instead of doing a project waiting for 24 months to complete a station substation, I can now do it in 15, 17 months.
That will cut down cost and you know, help me in a better turnover and faster, you know, turnaround. So that’s how we look at it.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so you’re saying there’s been some imports of the final product also, is it?
Vimal Kejriwal
I, I understand that orders have been placed. I don’t know whether any products have yet come in or not. But I, I do hear that components have started coming in. Some very critical components which were holding back some of the substation commissioning, GIS commissioning and all that. I think some have come. That’s what my understanding is. But to me it’s all honestly hearsay.
Unidentified Participant
Sir, you are understanding what, like what percentage of component? Probably just an understanding or what is. Okay, okay, then
Vimal Kejriwal
it’s not a question. Of value being large or small, it’s just a question that one small component can hold back the entire commissioning.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah.
Vimal Kejriwal
Okay, so Amit, we have to come back on the queue. There are a lot of people waiting.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashwini from MK Global Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Sir, good evening. Thanks. Yeah, I think most of the questions I’ve answered. Just one question sir. On last. So you know last calendar year we. Received one oil and gas pipeline in Middle East. How is the opportunity coming up now? Crude has been stable of late at around $65. So do you see any new opportunities coming up there for us?
Vimal Kejriwal
I think we are still not in the big league and all that. So I think whatever we are right now targeting and all that, those are not going to get impacted by. In fact the order which we got in place was this year. Okay. So I personally don’t think we are not large players like some of our competitors that you know, we could get impacted by scrapping of projects or not coming for us.
It’s still a little bit just testing the waters. Let me put it this way. So I don’t feel any issue. Also since you raised this issue of oil prices some other people were asking me on payments and on transmission. So clearly we are seeing the transmission pipeline being very robust and payments coming absolutely on time. So we have still not seen the impact of crude oil and all that on these projects. Maybe some very marquee projects or projects like Neom and all may get impacted but otherwise we have not heard of any transmission line projects getting impacted.
Oil and gas. Since we are not large players, we are not keeping a large track of what very close track of what is happening. Do you see any renewable opportunities in Middle east, Sir? For us 100% there are large opportunities. We were deliberately staying away because we really wanted to get our act together in India. And this year we are commissioning or actually we are commissioned almost 850. 900 and 950. 850. So we have commissioned almost 850 megawatt already of solar capacity spread over two large plants. So that has given us a large confidence, you know, saying that yes, we can do larger projects.
So we have now started looking at those markets. Okay. Both in, I’ll say Saudi and uae. All right sir, thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harshit from Access Capital. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you for the opportunity. Sir. Sir, can you please talk about the. Labor shortages which we were facing in the past and what has been its impact on our current quarter and by what time can we see the normalization of the film?
Vimal Kejriwal
Normalization? Because you know this problem has been going on for many years and in fact right now in our Board also we were discussing the same issue saying is there. I think the only discussion was that with Mandarega going and the new scheme being funded by state, maybe more people may start working outside because they may. The scheme may not be. You know, it may take some time for it to settle and all that.
But if that happens, not what the government wants, but if that happens, then maybe the labor supply may improve. But let me put you something. Sometime back we had 18,000 laborers. Now it’s become 24. As the order book and all the execution is expanding, the need goes up. So I think we will have a shortage of 2 to 3,000 or 4,000 people. We are taking various steps but difficult to say that when this labor shortage will get over. Very, very difficult. But any quantum on it, like I mean what sort of a quantum impact. We are having it on a quarterly basis or something like that.
If any color you can give it on. So if you look at numbers, maybe 500, 600 crores for the quarter could have been impacted where we could have got more revenue, especially on the. On the civil side. Okay, got it sir. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor company. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hello. Hello. Thank you. Hopefully I’m audible, sir. Now you’re audible.
Vimal Kejriwal
Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
Firstly sir, you were mentioning about the NEOM project getting affected because of the oil prices. Can you just. Just throw some more light? What are you. What we’re trying to convey, sir. There are lots of marquee projects in Saudi which are getting impact. Yesterday day before I saw that golden cube and all that also getting impacted Wall. I was told you main project. That’s what we are hearing. Okay. So the. The talk was, you know, the question was the oil price impact. So saga oil price impact, aspirational project. But your essential projects. Okay. Whether it is in transmission, whether it is in oil.
Like I’ll tell you, they had a large HODC project which they had put on hold for one year. Now it has come back which we had thought but they have come back. So what they are doing, if you look at most of our business in TND in Saudi has been to connect from renewable power. So what they are also doing like what we are doing is that okay. And power they want to produce from renewables. So we have to understand one more thing is that even if the price goes down, their internal consumption in my view is going down because they are relying a lot, lot more and more on renewables.
So they may have the same amount of Revenue coming in maybe from a. Even if the price is lower because the content is going up very clearly. Secondly sir, you mentioned about this Chinese.
Unidentified Participant
Entry into the segment as a supplier. Would be would be benefiting US [Foriegn Speech] cable segment. The capex that we and other people have done. Is there any threat for they participate. Participating there in the cable segment and then lowering of margins because compete lower levels margins. So how will that.
Vimal Kejriwal
[Foriegn Speech] Recommendation here is not an opening up of the sector for everything. What they have talked about is that your bought shortage may product technically what problem on substations, transformers etc GS etc. They are talking about opening our power plants also power equipment. You have to set up a lot more fuel based power plants. So I think it is more on that segment rather than on items like cables and cables and all have not been too much of import at least I am not aware of any major imports happening on cables.
Your Bharsi RN has been very high quality 400kv, 500kv cables and all that. I have not seen normal cables and conductors. I have never heard of a conductor coming into India. Okay. So I don’t see any impact of that on my cable and conductor business. No.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And what are the ground fillers or from the cable segment? Exactly. We have done capex also and going ahead order booking and trajectory going ahead.
Vimal Kejriwal
If you look at this quarter we have improved our revenue by 37%. Okay. So I think we are looking well and a large part of the increase also coming from our conductor business. So right now we are full for the next couple of quarters [Foriegn Speech] order booking [Foriegn Speech] because of the very high aluminium and copper pricing. So there are many customers who are still waiting to see. So I think order booking is slightly low on the lower side.
But it’s a matter of time that will get picked up. I don’t think we are worried because we have enough orders today.
Unidentified Participant
[Foriegn Speech] Correct. And thank you for hosting the call in the evening. Thank you sir.
Vimal Kejriwal
Thank you. Thank you.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rupesh from Nayanwala securities. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir. Am I audible?
Vimal Kejriwal
Yeah, go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Sir, I first of all I just want some clearance. I seem to have missed the guidance that you had given on margins. If you could just repeat that margin guidance. We have said that we are at 7.1 for nine months. We should be for the year will be between seven to seven and a half percent. Okay sir. And sir, earlier earlier in a few calls you had mentioned that you would be shifting the focus of civil to you know, building and factory with high Realization buildings, you know, high ticket size.
High ticket size orders for the civil segments. So if you could provide a mix on the building and factory. Building and factory order book of civil as against the other projects. I don’t have the exact number but I think out of that 11,000 almost 60, 65% would be buildings and factories. But let me tell you the one thing. Everything is on buildings and factories. 100%. Okay. Okay. Also the size has been going up. Okay.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. So that’s great to know. And just one last question. If I could squeeze in the pdcil. This entire situation with the pgca, is it affecting the domestic TMB revenues at all or is there, you know, a minuscule impact?
Vimal Kejriwal
So let me put this way. I don’t think the revenues are getting impacted. We have a large order book, number one. Number two, I think you joined later. So I had said earlier that this year on the TBCB 75% of the orders have gone to private sector. Okay. And we are, we have got orders from almost all the large private sector clients whether it is Adani, Starlight, Indigrid, you name it.
So we are getting that. You know, to say that nothing is getting impacted will not be correct. But I don’t see there is any, any significant impact of that especially on the revenues for the year. I think our India business has grown very well even this year also.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so that, that’s it from my side. Thank you so much.
Vimal Kejriwal
Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. That was the last question for today. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Bimal Kejriwal for closing comments. Over to you sir.
Vimal Kejriwal
Thank you everyone for participating in a continued interest in case. Thank you. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. On behalf of Key KEC International limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you. It.