HYDERABAD'S RS 14,725 CRORE CABLING PLAN HITS A WALL

Hyderabad's plan to bury its tangle of overhead power and telecom wires across the entire city has run into trouble. According to Telangana Today, Hyderabad's ambitious Rs 14,725-crore underground power cabling project has been delayed due to funding constraints and unresolved implementation issues, with officials saying the government is prioritising the creation of a third DISCOM before taking up the large-scale infrastructure project.

The idea took shape after a study tour. In November last year, the State Cabinet approved the proposal to establish an underground power distribution network across Hyderabad, following Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka's visit to Bengaluru in May last year, where he studied the city's underground cabling system. Based on that benchmarking exercise, officials estimated that implementing an underground power cabling network across the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits would require an investment of Rs 14,725 crore, with the city proposed to be divided into three operational zones for phased implementation, and the project also envisaged laying T-Fibre and other communication cables underground.

The scale of the full plan is enormous. The broader plan proposes about 27,000 km of underground cabling across the city over four to five years at an estimated cost exceeding Rs 13,500 to Rs 14,725 crore. Rather than attempt this in one shot, planners carved out a smaller, fundable first bite. As part of the first phase, the Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TGSPDCL) prepared proposals to convert overhead power lines into underground cables in the Metro zone at an estimated cost of Rs 4,051 crore. This Phase I covers the pilot corridor. The underground cabling project, which includes the complete undergrounding of the existing 33 kV, 11 kV and LT networks on major roads, covers Banjara Hills, Secunderabad, central and south areas. The scope is significant on the ground: the proposal includes more than 2,300 km of 11 kV HDD works, 6,251 km of LT line conversion, and the installation of over 14,000 Ring Main Units (RMUs).

On paper, Phase I already has a funding route. GO Ms. 43 was issued formalising the plan, and the project cost would be met from TGSPDCL's internal funds or through borrowing. A dedicated lender has even stepped up for this smaller tranche: the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) Limited came forward to offer Rs 4,000 crore as loans at lower interest rates for developing the proposed underground electric cabling network in Greater Hyderabad, with REC ready to extend the loans at an interest rate of nine per cent. Execution on this pilot stretch is visibly progressing — work on 33 kV and 11 kV lines in Hyderabad Central, Banjara Hills and Secunderabad circles is nearly complete.

The citywide Rs 14,725-crore follow-on is a different story. Extending REC-style borrowing or DISCOM balance-sheet funding to 27,000 km across all of GHMC — roughly 3.6 times the cost of the Metro-zone pilot — needs a financing structure that hasn't been finalised, and the government's attention has shifted toward setting up a third DISCOM before greenlighting that spend. On the ground, execution complexity is also a real constraint: delays stem primarily from close coordination needed with multiple agencies — GHMC, Hyderabad Water Board, Traffic Department, and other utilities — for road cutting, trenching, and horizontal directional drilling (HDD) without disrupting traffic, and officials note the challenges of executing underground cabling in a congested metro necessitate careful planning and phased rollout.

For Hyderabad homebuyers, the takeaway is nuanced. Banjara Hills, Secunderabad, Hyderabad Central and Hyderabad South — the Metro zone circles already funded and under execution — stand to benefit soonest from reduced outages, safer streets and a cleaner skyline, which typically supports resale values and rental demand in these micro-markets. The objective is to improve the quality and reliability of power supply, which would attract industries and other investments into the Metro zone, officials said. Buyers eyeing newer corridors such as Kokapet, Tellapur or Rajendra Nagar should track the citywide rollout separately, since those areas fall outside the currently funded Rs 4,051-crore Phase I and will only see undergrounding once the larger financing question is resolved.

For now, the message from officials is one of sequencing, not cancellation. The government has not scrapped the Rs 14,725-crore vision — it has simply chosen to stabilise the DISCOM structure first before committing fresh borrowing at that scale, leaving the Banjara Hills pilot as the proof of concept the rest of the city will eventually follow.