Trenchless · Service
Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) Contractor in India
Steerable trenchless boring that installs ducts and conduits beneath roads, railway formations, canals, rivers and built-up streets — 18 rigs on our own books, crewed by our own operators.
Overview
Go under it, not through it
An HDD bore begins with a small pilot hole steered along a designed profile, tracked from the surface as it advances. The hole is then reamed up to the diameter the product needs, and the duct or pipe is pulled back through in a single controlled operation. The surface above — carriageway, track ballast, riverbed, footpath — is never opened.
- Pilot, ream and pull-back on one programme
- 18 rigs owned outright, entry to large diameter
- Road, rail, river, canal and metro crossings
- Minimal reinstatement, faster civic sign-off
The Bore Sequence
How a crossing is actually delivered
Setout & Clearance
Entry and exit pits fixed against the survey drawing, existing services proved clear.
Setout & Clearance
Entry and exit pits fixed against the survey drawing, existing services proved clear.
Pilot Bore
Steerable head advanced on the design profile, walkover-tracked every rod.
Pilot Bore
Steerable head advanced on the design profile, walkover-tracked every rod.
Reaming
Hole opened in staged passes sized to the product, with fluid managed throughout.
Reaming
Hole opened in staged passes sized to the product, with fluid managed throughout.
Pull-Back
Duct or pipe drawn through in one pass on a swivel, pull force logged.
Pull-Back
Duct or pipe drawn through in one pass on a swivel, pull force logged.
Proving
Mandrel and pressure checks confirm the installed duct is round, clear and continuous.
Proving
Mandrel and pressure checks confirm the installed duct is round, clear and continuous.
Reinstatement
Pits backfilled and restored to the authority's specification, records closed out.
Reinstatement
Pits backfilled and restored to the authority's specification, records closed out.
Crossings
Obstacles we are brought in for
Carriageways are the bread and butter — national highways, state roads, city arterials and colony internals where cutting the surface would mean traffic diversion, restoration cost and a permit argument. Under railway formations the constraint changes entirely: depth below rail level, no settlement tolerance and a possession window measured in hours rather than days.
Water crossings need a profile designed around the scour depth and the bank geology, not just the span. Canal and irrigation crossings usually come with a seasonal window that fixes the programme before anything else does. Metro alignments demand clearance from structures that are themselves recent and precisely surveyed.
Then there is the dense old city, where the obstacle is not one feature but the accumulated congestion of decades — and where a bore succeeds or fails on the quality of the GPR survey that preceded it. Permissions for all of these are handled by our own RoW and liaisoning desk, so the rig does not sit idle waiting on a file.
Fleet & Capability
Rig capability and bore parameters
| Owned rigs | 18 rigs spanning mini/entry class through to large-diameter machines |
|---|---|
| Typical bore lengths | Short urban crossings of a few tens of metres through to long river and highway crossings; length confirmed against rig class and ground |
| Product installed | HDPE duct (single and multi-way), PLB duct, steel casing and utility pipe, sized per client specification |
| Tracking | Walkover locating on every rod; wireline or gyro-based guidance specified where surface access is restricted or accuracy demands it |
| Drilling fluid | Bentonite-based fluid mixed to the ground type, with containment, recovery and controlled disposal on site |
| Depth of cover | Set by the asset owner's standard — road, rail, canal and pipeline authorities each specify their own minimum |
| Setout reference | Bore profile drawn against the pre-bore utility survey; entry and exit chainages fixed before mobilisation |
| Records | Bore log, as-drilled profile, pull-force record, duct proving certificate and reinstatement photographs |
Rig selection, achievable bore length and reamed diameter are confirmed per crossing after the ground conditions, product specification and access constraints are reviewed. Bore profiles are designed around the verified utility survey and the asset owner's cover requirement, not around convenience of setout.
Commercials
What moves the price of a crossing
HDD is quoted per crossing or per metre, but the metre rate is meaningless without the conditions attached to it. Four things dominate.
Ground type. Alluvium and stiff clay are predictable. Cobbles, boulders, weathered rock and made ground with old rubble slow the pilot, wear tooling and occasionally force a re-drill. Any rate quoted before the ground is understood is a rate that will be revised.
Diameter and product. Reaming to take a 40 mm duct is a different operation from reaming for a large steel casing. Multi-way duct banks and heavy pipe change rig class, fluid volume and pull-back time together.
Access and working hours. Entry and exit pit space, night-only windows on arterial roads, railway possessions and traffic marshalling all convert directly into standing time.
Permissions and restoration. Whether restoration is to a municipal specification or a highway authority's, and who carries the completion certificate obligation, materially changes the number. We price this openly rather than treating it as a variation later.
Safety & Assurance
Controls applied before the rig starts
No bore begins without a permit-to-dig signed against the verified utility drawing, and every entry and exit pit is hand-dug or vacuum-excavated to the first metre regardless of what the survey shows. Rig setout, tracking calibration and fluid mix are checked at hold points recorded in the Inspection and Test Plan agreed with the client. Pull force is monitored and logged during pull-back so an over-stress event is visible in the record, not discovered later as a failed duct. Fluid is contained, recovered and disposed of to the site's environmental conditions. Crews work under our ISO 45001:2018 occupational health and safety system with documented toolbox talks, and the crossing is not closed out until the proving certificate and reinstatement evidence are both in the handover pack.
FAQ
HDD drilling — common questions
Trenching opens the surface along the whole route and then rebuilds it. HDD opens only a small entry and exit pit and installs the duct through undisturbed ground between them. On a busy road the difference is weeks of traffic management and restoration cost against a crossing completed without closing a lane.
We insist on it. A steerable head is blind to anything the operator has not been told about, so a bore designed without a verified utility drawing is a strike waiting to happen. Where a client has no survey, we do it first.
Weathered and soft rock, yes, with appropriate tooling and a slower programme. Hard massive rock needs a different method and a different rate, and we say so at quotation stage rather than discovering it mid-bore.
It is contained at the pits, recovered where volumes justify recycling, and disposed of in line with the site's environmental conditions. Uncontrolled discharge is the single most common cause of complaints against HDD contractors, and it is avoidable.
Yes. Our in-house liaisoning team files and follows up permissions with municipal bodies, PWD, NHAI, railways and metro authorities, and closes out the restoration certificate afterwards. Rigs and paperwork move on the same programme.
No. All 18 rigs are company-owned and crewed by our own operators. It is the reason we can commit to a mobilisation date without checking a rental yard's availability first.
Have a crossing that cannot be opened up?
Tell us the obstacle, the product to be installed and the authority involved — we will come back with a method, a rig class and a programme.
Discuss an HDD CrossingHDD trenchless drilling — method, output and detailed questions
Mezux Touch installs services beneath obstacles by horizontal directional drilling, on 18 company-owned rigs across a range of sizes. HDD is not simply an alternative to trenching; it is the method that applies where opening the surface is impossible, prohibited or disproportionately expensive — under a live carriageway, a railway, a canal, a runway approach or a protected street. The variable that decides whether a bore succeeds is the ground, which is why we survey before we quote rather than pricing on length and managing the difference through a variation clause.
How the work is run
A bore profile is designed against measured ground and against what already occupies it, not against a standard detail. Entry and exit positions are set by the profile the ground allows rather than by convenience. Rig class is matched to the expected material, because a machine sized for soil stalls in boulder ground and a machine sized for rock is uneconomic in clay. Drilling fluid is managed as a system, since inadequate fluid causes hole collapse and excess causes surface breakout. Where a pilot bore meets conditions that were not predicted, we stop and reassess rather than forcing progress.
What you receive
An as-built bore profile showing the actual path achieved, in plan and in long section, tied to coordinates rather than to site features. Depth of cover along the alignment, which is what the asset owner and the road authority both check. A record of the ground actually encountered, including where it differed from prediction, because that information has value on the next crossing. Where a crossing serves a railway, canal or highway, the pack is formatted for that authority's own review rather than for the client alone. Drilling fluid volumes and disposal records where the site or the permission requires them.
Beyond the basics
When is HDD the right method rather than open cut? Where the surface cannot be opened — live carriageways, railways, canals, protected streets — or where reinstatement and disruption cost more than the bore. It is not automatically cheaper.
What is the main risk on a bore? Ground that was not established beforehand. Boulders stop or deflect a pilot, and rock changes the machine entirely, which is why we survey before quoting.
Do you quote a firm rate without a survey? We quote a range and state which end applies to which ground. Quoting low and relying on a variation clause is how these disputes start.
How deep does a crossing need to be? That is set by the authority whose asset is crossed, not by us. Railways and canals specify cover independently of what the bore would prefer.
Do you provide an as-built? Always, in plan and long section, tied to coordinates. It is what the asset owner checks and what protects the client afterwards.
Terms used on this page
Pilot bore — the first and smallest pass of a directional drill, which establishes the path and meets the ground first. Reaming — enlarging the pilot bore to the diameter required for the product pipe. Pullback — drawing the product pipe through the reamed bore, the final stage of the crossing. Drilling fluid — the bentonite-based mixture that stabilises the hole and carries cuttings out. Breakout — drilling fluid escaping to the surface, which must be managed rather than tolerated.
