Tejas Networks was the loudest name on the Indian tape today. It closed yesterday at ₹510.85, opened at ₹540.60 and ran as high as ₹576.80 — up 12.9% at the peak, as reported by Business Standard. Free Press Journal clocked it at ₹561.30, up 9.88%, its strongest single session in 16 weeks. Through the afternoon it sat near ₹555, up about 8.7%, per Tickertape.

What happened

On 27 August Tejas received a Letter of Intent from Tata Consultancy Services worth ₹1,537 crore. TCS is the prime contractor on BSNL's 4G rollout; Tejas is the equipment maker sitting underneath it. The LOI covers radio access network (RAN) equipment, accessories and installation materials for 18,685 BSNL sites. RAN is the radio half of a mobile network — the boxes and antennas on the tower that actually talk to your phone. A detailed purchase order is to follow.

Why it moved this hard

Here is the number that did the work. At the end of Q1 FY27 Tejas's entire order book was ₹1,529 crore — that is all the signed, unexecuted work it had left. This single LOI, at ₹1,537 crore, is larger than the whole backlog. In one letter the company roughly doubled its visible future revenue. That is the difference between a 5% pop and a 13% one.

What the headline hides: this isn't demand arriving out of nowhere. Free Press Journal reports it formalises the ₹1,526 crore allocation Tejas was already expected to receive out of TCS's larger ₹2,903 crore BSNL advance purchase order from May 2025. The market wasn't pricing a surprise customer — it was pricing the moment an expectation turned into a signed document. The distinction matters: an LOI is an intent to buy, not yet the purchase order that locks quantities and delivery dates.

The business

Tejas is not a BSNL pure-play, even though BSNL is its single biggest dependency. It sells:

• Optical and core transport — DWDM and OTN gear for backbone networks
• Broadband access — GPON and 10G-PON for fibre-to-the-home and BharatNet
• Wireless — the 4G/5G RAN that won today's order
• Routing — IP-MPLS access and aggregation routers
• Silicon — Saankhya Labs, its 64%-owned chip design arm

It is a Tata group company, held through Panatone Finvest, and it exports to roughly 75 countries. So today's catalyst is one segment serving one customer — a thick slice, not the whole pie.

Is it expensive?

You cannot use a P/E here, and that itself is the story. Tickertape shows a P/E of −9.99 — negative, because Tejas is loss-making. Market cap is about ₹9,078 crore and P/B is 3.10. Set that against the obvious listed alternative, HFCL: about ₹34,892 crore market cap, a P/E near 112 and P/B of 8.47, and it actually earns money. So Tejas is much cheaper on book — you pay roughly 3x net assets versus HFCL's 8x — but you are buying losses on the hope of a turn, while HFCL's price already assumes years of growth. Neither is cheap in absolute terms.

The Q1 FY27 numbers show the tension. Revenue was ₹402.16 crore, up 99.1% year-on-year, yet the net loss widened to ₹202.24 crore from ₹193.87 crore a year earlier. Revenue doubled and the loss still grew. Net debt stood at ₹4,277 crore. The 52-week range is ₹294 to ₹644.75, so even after today the stock is below its high.

Who else this touches

• TCS — as prime contractor it controls the subcontracting pace, so it sets when Tejas can actually book revenue
• HFCL, Sterlite Technologies, ITI — the other listed names geared to BSNL and BharatNet spending; a funded phase-2 helps the whole group
• BSNL — 18,685 more 4G sites moves it closer to being a real fourth network, which is low-end pricing pressure on Jio, Airtel and Vi

The one risk that flips it

Conversion. An LOI is not cash. If the detailed purchase order slips, or the rollout is phased more slowly than the market now assumes, the order book gets a headline while the P&L waits. Tejas has been here before: the earlier ₹7,492 crore first-phase BSNL order covering roughly 100,000 sites delivered revenue that still ended in losses. Doubling the backlog fixes visibility. It does not by itself fix margins at a company carrying ₹4,277 crore of net debt.

What to watch

The detailed purchase order and its delivery schedule, and whether Q2 FY27 shows the loss narrowing as this volume starts landing.

As of ~3:00 pm IST, 28 Aug 2026. Sources: Business Standard, Business Standard Capital Market, Free Press Journal, Business Today, Tickertape, Tejas Networks exchange filings. For discussion and education only — not investment advice. Verify before acting.