New Delhi, Nov. 12 -- India's growing appetite for underground infrastructure has opened up an opportunity for domestic engineering companies to challenge foreign suppliers of tunnel-boring machines (TBMs). State-owned BEML Ltd is looking to capitalize on this demand by developing indigenous machines and reducing the country's dependence on imports, particularly from China.

The company intends to begin with smaller machines used in metro rail, hydropower, irrigation and water projects before moving into larger equipment, BEML Chairman and Managing Director Shantanu Roy told Bloomberg.

The strategy is to build domestic technological capabilities rather than simply assemble equipment sourced from overseas. Here is how BEML plans to approa...