HT/LT Cable Route GPR Survey in Bengaluru

Rates and page checked: 23 October 2026

Why order an electric cable route GPR survey in Bengaluru before trenching?

A new power cable rarely gets an empty road. Along most Bengaluru alignments it has to share the margin with BESCOM's existing feeders, street-light circuits, BWSSB water mains, sewers and a thick band of telecom ducts. An electric cable route GPR survey in Bengaluru tells the cabling contractor, before the first trench is cut, which of those are present, roughly how deep they lie and where a gap wide enough for the new cable exists.

The survey answers three practical questions:

1. Is the proposed alignment workable as drawn, or does it need shifting to the other side of the road?
2. At which points will the new cable cross another service, and how deep is that service?
3. Where is open trenching risky enough that a short bore should be planned instead?

The method, equipment and outputs common to every city are set out on our HT/LT cable route GPR survey service page; what follows is limited to the conditions power cabling meets in Bengaluru.

Where do power cable routes in Bengaluru run into other services?

Conflicts cluster in a few predictable places, and a survey plan gives them extra attention:

• Arterial road margins. Footpaths and service strips on main roads carry dense telecom ducting laid by many operators. A power cable squeezed into the same strip needs exact positions, not an assumed clear width.
• Substation exits. Several feeders leave a substation along the same street before they branch, so a new HT cable may run parallel to existing ones for some distance.
• Metro-side stretches. Near Namma Metro alignments, services may have been diverted during construction, and old records for those streets can be unreliable.
• Residential layouts. Inner roads hold LT distribution, service connections to each building, water lines and sewers within a narrow width.
• Rocky stretches. Where granite sits close to the surface, existing cables are often laid shallower, which brings them nearer to the depth of any new trench.

Knowing these spots in advance lets us set closer line spacing exactly where congestion is likely, instead of scanning the whole route at one density.

How is underground electrical line tracing in Bengaluru carried out?

Two instruments do different jobs, and the survey depends on using both:

• Electromagnetic locating picks up the field around a conductor. Live cables give a passive signal; dead or isolated cables can be traced once a transmitter signal is applied at an accessible point such as a pillar box or joint pit.
• Ground penetrating radar records a reflection from any buried object that differs from the soil, metal or not, so it also finds the plastic pipes and empty ducts that EM cannot see.

Where an EM trace and a radar reflection line up, the find is reported with higher confidence. Radar alone cannot read voltage, so telling an HT cable from an LT one relies on the EM signal, its connection to known pillars or substations and any records the client provides; when that remains uncertain, the report says so. Our page on underground cable detection explains the instruments in more detail, and the article on how GPR traces HT/LT cables covers the radar side.

How are junctions, drains and metro crossings handled on a cable route?

HT cable route mapping in Bengaluru is never a single straight pass. Crossings get their own treatment:

1. Road junctions are scanned on a tight grid across the full width, because services from several directions converge there.
2. Storm-water drains and culverts are recorded with their position and approximate base level, which lets the designer choose to take the cable beneath or above each one.
3. Planned bore crossings are scanned at the entry pit, the exit pit and along the bore line between them. Our HDD service can drill such crossings with company-owned rigs, quoted separately.
4. Metro corridors are scanned only within the strip BMRCL has allowed, during the hours it permits; the project owner obtains that permission.

When does a power cable route need an L-section?

Some cabling work orders ask for a depth profile along the alignment. In that case we run an L-section GPR survey, which adds the depth of each detected service along the route to the normal findings. It costs ₹32 per metre instead of ₹24 and is done in the same visit, so there is no second mobilisation. If the contract only needs positions and crossings, the standard survey is enough.

What does an HT/LT cable route survey in Bengaluru cost?

Billing is by route length. Standard scanning costs ₹24 a metre; with the L-section profile it is ₹32. Any order shorter than 4 km is charged as 4 km, and as Bengaluru is outside Delhi NCR, a project is never billed below ₹1,00,000. GST comes on top.

A large cabling programme placed as one order is billed 25% lower on every metre once it exceeds 100 km, 40% lower beyond 500 km and half price beyond 1,000 km. Crew mobilisation from Faridabad, night working, traffic or permission arrangements and CAD/GIS drawing sets are billed as separate items. Full slabs are on the GPR survey price list.

Are we connected with BESCOM?

No. Mezux Touch holds no tie-up, approval or empanelment from BESCOM or any other distribution company, nor with the city civic body, BWSSB or BMRCL. We are hired directly by EPC contractors, cabling firms, consultants and private owners, and the findings belong to that client. Anyone planning an electric grid underground survey in Bengaluru for a BESCOM-related contract can order from us in the usual way. For other survey work in the city, see our Bengaluru GPR survey page.