Goyal says India will build its own tunnel-boring machines as China's curbs near

India will make its own tunnel-boring machines if China stops supplying them, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday, two weeks before Beijing's new licensing rules for the machines take effect.

"If they don't give us tunnel-boring machines, we will develop it in India," Mr Goyal said at a student forum at Kirori Mal College in Delhi, according to the Free Press Journal. He said India would not compromise its strategic interests to get critical technology, and pointed to China's earlier curbs on rare earths. "When they stopped rare earths, we did not go begging to them," he said. He added that India wanted good relations with China and that ties were good today.

What China has announced

China's Ministry of Commerce announced on October 19 that tunnel-boring machines would be brought under its export-control regime for dual-use items, those with both civilian and military uses, from November 18. Exporters will need a licence. A spokesperson said the items had a "clear dual-use nature" and that the move was meant to safeguard China's national security and interests, the official news agency Xinhua reported. The ministry said applications that met requirements would be approved and that China was willing to keep global supply chains "stable and flowing".

The controls cover complete machines, including shield machines and hard-rock borers, and key parts such as cutterheads and main drives, according to China Global South Project's reading of the notice. They also take in walking excavators for difficult terrain and concrete-spraying machines used to line tunnels at high altitude. The same package tightened controls on drone-related items and dredgers.

The notice sets up two tiers, the China Global South Project reported: licences for shipments to "sensitive countries and regions" that have disputes with China, and a simpler registration for others. Beijing has not said which countries count as sensitive.

What it means for India

Tunnel-boring machines are the giant rotating drills that dig metro lines under cities and rail and road tunnels through mountains. India relies heavily on imported machines, Nikkei Asia noted. A 2020 Indian Express investigation, citing industry estimates, found that nearly 90% of the machines working in India had links to China, either Chinese makers or foreign companies building them in Chinese factories.

India has already had a taste of the risk. In September 2025, Germany's ambassador in New Delhi, Philipp Ackermann, said Chinese customs had held up at least three machines made by the German firm Herrenknecht at its plant in China and bound for Indian projects, Business Today reported. The machines were eventually shipped, and Herrenknecht has since started production in India.

The new rules would also apply to equipment for high-altitude tunnelling, the kind needed for all-weather roads and railways in the Himalayas. A Chinese analyst, Li Guangman of the Kunlunce Research Institute, argued that restricting exports would let Beijing slow India's construction of military transport links near the Line of Actual Control, the China Global South Project reported. China's government has not said the controls are aimed at any country.

For Bengal, the clearest stake is Kolkata's metro, whose tunnels under the city and the Hooghly were dug by such machines, and any underground lines the city builds next.

What happens next

The curbs take effect on November 18. Mr Goyal did not say how quickly India could build its own machines or which companies would make them. Reuters reported in August that the government was planning a $1.2 billion manufacturing incentive programme with tunnel-boring machines among its priority products, the China Global South Project noted.