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Nagpur NMC Underground Works: Crores Spent, Failures Persist

Flooded Nagpur road with exposed underground drainage and power cables beside an open road excavation trench
Flooding around underground drainage and power cable work shows the disruption linked to Nagpur NMC’s road excavation projects

Nagpur, the winter capital of Vidarbha, has poured hundreds of crores into buried infrastructure schemes in recent years.


Between 2024 and 2026, the civic budget and related projects listed massive outlays for new sewer lines, storm drains and underground power cables. In late 2025–mid 2026, authorities announced plans for a Rs. 125 crore Urban Street Network to combine water, sewage, electricity and other utilities beneath city footpaths, and the ongoing Nag River abatement programme includes Rs. 542 crore for 535 km of new and replaced sewer pipelines.


The state power company (MSEDCL) separately approved Rs. 313 crore for underground power distribution upgrades in Nagpur. Despite these huge sums, the city’s roads still flood in storms and residents suffer power outages, raising urgent questions about why the new systems are failing.


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Major Projects Planned


NMC’s budgets and public statements show an aggressive push for buried utilities. In 2024–25 alone, official expense codes earmarked ₹15.29 crore for constructing new underground drains and another ₹9 crore for general underground drainage works.


By 2025, the city announced the Urban Street Network (USN), a Rs. 125 crore project “to integrate water, sewage, electricity, storm drains, and OFC lines into a single underground system” along pedestrian footpaths. At the same time, the Nagpur Pollution Abatement Project (under the National River Conservation Plan) was moving into execution, with bids opened for a Rs. 542.46 crore package covering 534.9 km of sewer lines.

The North Zone package (about ₹253 crore) will add 110.9 km of secondary sewers and replace 137 km of old branch sewers, while the Central Zone (₹289 crore) adds 113.6 km and replaces 98 km.


These schemes, among the largest sewer infrastructure upgrades in recent years, are intended to extend underground connectivity to areas that had no sewers.

The electricity network has seen similar proposals.


In September 2024, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company (MSEDCL) announced ₹313 crore for strengthening Nagpur’s underground power grid. Work orders for ₹238 crore had been issued, and tenders for another ₹75 crore had been floated. In particular, ₹46 crore was approved for laying underground cables in one city constituency, allowing the removal of overhead poles and transformers. NMC itself is coordinating with MSEDCL on the USN.


For the first time, the city plans to “rope in” MSEDCL to shift overhead lines and transformer boxes into the new underground system. In short, official documents boast billions of rupees allocated to buried drains, pipes and cables, money that should translate into dry roads and steady power.



Sewer and Drainage Upgrades


Even as the spending numbers stack up, the city’s drainage woes continue. Last monsoon saw dozens of areas inundated. In July 2024, Nagpur’s municipal commissioner conceded that much of the flooding resulted not from lack of rain but from faulty design.


Elevated cement roads and “inadequate drainage infrastructure” had left streets submerged. In other words, new concrete roads built without proper side drains or with raised profiles trapped water on the surface. The city then promised scientific fixes (for example, future cement roads to include box drains and proper cross-connections).

But local complaints suggest many old drains still clog easily. In several suburbs, workers digging sewage lines discovered that earlier pipelines were misplaced or undersized, causing backups. A recent report noted that “several localities in North Nagpur either lack an underground sewer network or have lines discharging directly into the Pili River”, a reminder that until these gaps are closed, rainwater and sewage will still overflow onto roads.


Indeed, the Nagpur Tribune (a city news site) notes that the new sewer packages aim to extend drainage only to areas “outside the network”. This includes parts of Civil Lines and other colonies previously unserved by sewers. In sum, even as big projects were announced, much of Nagpur’s core neighbourhoods were still coping with old or absent drains.


Analysts point out that installing thousands of kilometres of pipe is one thing; keeping the system clear and properly connected is another. So far, many freshly laid pipelines have yet to prove themselves under heavy rain. The visible result: after years of spending, residents in low-lying Vidarbha quarters continue to wade through water when the heavens open.


Power and Cable Upgrades


Nagpur’s power supply projects faced a similar gap between investment and outcome. The city’s strategic push to underground cables has been praised as forward-looking, but in practice, thousands of consumers still suffer frequent outages.


MSEDCL’s 2024 announcement of ₹313 crore for underground distribution was accompanied by promises of new substations and 33 kV channels. Yet in summer 2026, Nagpur again plunged into darkness during heatwaves.

A news report from May 2026 described “intense heat and frequent power cuts,” with citizens outraged that air conditioners and fans tripped off amid 45 °C temperatures. Voices on social media and in the press pointed out that outages persisted “despite repeated claims of upgrades and preventive maintenance”.


Behind these failures is a story of poor coordination. The city’s own records reveal that the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has inadvertently caused most cable damage. Between April and June 2025, buried power cables were severed 118 times across Nagpur, mostly due to other agencies digging in the ground. Of those incidents, 97 (82%) involved government works, and NMC projects topped the list with 55 cases. In other words, construction on one utility routinely breaks another’s lines.


While shifting lines underground should reduce such accidents, it appears that without proper planning, the new cables remain at risk. For example, even as NMC planned its urban street conduits, other road projects continued cutting trenches in unaware areas, leaving girders of electricity in peril.


Nonetheless, the official narrative stayed on track with the spending plan: authorities repeatedly assured the public that thousands of new meters of cable were being laid, and that major works (like undergrounding 21.75 km in one division and 24.85 km in another) were completed. Residents see a different story.


A local corporator, speaking after a cable fire knocked out power in part of the city, was forced to ask people to “minimise electricity consumption” to avoid overloading the system. That appeal itself drew criticism.


Why should consumers change habits when the system itself, ostensibly upgraded at great cost, cannot cope with ordinary peak demand?

Observers noted that the outage-induced cable fire and the routine tripping “further fuelled public anger”. In short, despite nearly ₹600 crore being earmarked (Rs. 313 cr by MSEDCL and Rs. 125 cr by NMC) for underground power networks, Nagpur’s electricity grid remained just as fragile under strain.



Continuing Failures


By 2026, it was clear that the spending had not delivered on its promise. City officials themselves began admitting the gap.


After the July 2024 floods, the commissioner told reporters that “inadequate drainage infrastructure” was at fault.

He committed to changes (such as better connectivity and expert-planned drains) in upcoming road projects, but so far, few effects were visible. Meanwhile, frustration mounted that future plans had not prevented current woes.


Commentators pointed out that NMC “owns up” to design failures in its own roads, but still managed to spend lavishly on schemes that did not yet help residents.


Similarly, in the power sector, municipal records published by the press speak of a series of missteps. An underground cable targeted by National Highways Authority work recently left 22,000 people off grid during a heatwave, ironically highlighting the very coordination problems NMC’s underground plans were meant to solve (the excavation severed a feeder in May 2026).


Though local media focused on the NHAI mistake, the larger issue was recognised. Nagpur’s buried cables are constantly threatened by city and state construction.

In short, the official line of “hundreds of crores invested” has rung hollow. As one editorial put it, the people are asking why the city’s infrastructure “continues to fail every summer despite repeated claims of upgrades”.


Citizens have not stayed silent. Across Nagpur’s neighbourhoods, social media feeds are filled with photos of flooded subways and darkened block faces even after the big announcements of new networks.


Residents complain that ₹10,000-crore-plus city budgets (Nagpur’s 2026–27 budget in total was over ₹5,200 crore) tout grand projects, yet on-ground realities contradict official optimism. Every new collapse or blackout amplifies scepticism.

Opposition corporators and activists question how years of work in “Vidarbha’s key city” could yield such slipshod results. Calls are growing for accountability: inquiries into contracting glitches, audits of contractor payments, and simpler fixes like educating operators to avoid digging through cables.


At press conferences, senior officials now insist that better coordination is coming. But the proof will lie in the months ahead. With the monsoon and the next heatwave looming, Nagpur’s citizens await whether these buried investments will finally pay off.


For now, each rainy morning and every outage-ridden afternoon reiterates the same uneasy question. Billions have been spent underground, so why is everything still going wrong?


FAQs


Q: How much has NMC spent on underground drainage and power networks in Nagpur?

A: Official budget documents and news reports show Nagpur has allocated enormous sums. For 2024–25, NMC approved roughly ₹15.29 crore for new underground drains and ₹9 crore for general underground drains. In addition, the city announced a ₹125 crore Urban Street Network project (water, sewage, electricity underground), and a sewer upgrade worth ₹542 crore (534.9 km of sewers) was tendered under a national river-cleaning plan. Separately, the state power utility sanctioned ₹313 crore for Nagpur’s buried power cables. Altogether, hundreds of crores have been devoted to underground infrastructure in the 2024–2026 period.


Q: Why are Nagpur’s streets still flooding despite new underground drains?

A: Many areas were still served by old or no drains when rains came. After heavy July 2024 rain, city officials admitted that inadequately designed drains and raised concrete roads caused waterlogging. Investigations found that large parts of the city remained without proper sewer connections, so even new drain lines have not yet relieved flood-prone neighbourhoods. In short, the under-construction underground network has not covered enough of the city or remedied poorly built roads, so flooding persists.


Q: What problems have emerged with underground power cables in Nagpur?

A: Underground power cables in Nagpur have frequently been damaged by construction activities. In spring–summer 2025, 82% of reported cable faults were traced to digging by agencies, with NMC projects alone causing 55 breaks. As a result, Nagpur has continued to suffer frequent blackouts. One report noted that despite claims of ₹313 crore upgrades, outages became “widespread” during 45°C heatwaves, sparking public anger. Coordination failures and overloaded old equipment remain major problems even with the new underground lines.


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About the Author

Pranay Arya is the founder and editor of The News Dirt, an independent journalism platform focused on ground-level reporting across Vidarbha. He has authored 800+ research-based articles covering public issues, regional history, infrastructure, governance, and socio-economic developments, building one of the region’s most extensive digital knowledge archives.

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