HCL was built largely around assured government procurement, especially large state-run telecom operators such as BSNL and MTNL. For years, the company survived because the state was not just the owner, but also the main customer. Once that procurement ecosystem weakened, HCL’s business model began to unravel.
The year was 1952, and India was laying the foundations of its modern infrastructure. Just as it was investing in steel, power, and railways, telecommunications too was treated as a strategic public utility vital for administration, connectivity, and sovereignty. A country with just five years of independence from colonial rule could not afford to remain dependent on foreign suppliers for something as critical as communications infrastructure. It was in this context that Hindustan Cables Limited (HCL) was established at Rupnarayanpur in West Bengal, to create a domestic manufacturing base for telecom cables and reduce reliance on imports.
Rupnarayanpur in West Bengal was strategically chosen, owing to its location within the industrially rich Asansol-Durgapur belt, which offered access to infrastructure, raw materials, and logistical support. Over the decades, HCL became a key supplier of communication cables to India’s state-run telecom networks, including Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL).
Through the decades from the 1950s to the early 1990s, Hindustan Cables Limited was a major profit-making public-sector undertaking, laying the backbone of India’s telecommunications network. It specialised in jelly-filled cables, a more durable and moisture-resistant version of telephone cables designed for underground and outdoor telecom networks. As the country’s communications system evolved, HCL also moved into fibre-optic cables, marking its role in both the landline era and the early stages of telecom modernisation.
Over the years, it grew its operations to Hyderabad, Naini, and Narendrapur. In 1984, the company took over the management of Machine Tool Works, Narendrapur in Calcutta, from the Cycle Corporation of India. At its zenith, the company operated one of the largest telecom cable production capacities in the country. It transformed Rupnarayan into Hindustan Cables Township.
HCL was built largely around assured government procurement, especially large state-run telecom operators such as BSNL and MTNL. For years, the company survived because the state was not just the owner, but also the main customer. Once that procurement ecosystem weakened, HCL’s business model began to unravel. By 2003, production collapsed.
However, the decline was not sudden. HCL was profitable until 1994, but by the mid-1990s, the pressure had become structural. The first came from technology: the copper-heavy landline infrastructure on which HCL had built its business lost its centrality as global and domestic markets shifted from wireline to wireless communication, reducing demand for traditional telecom cables. Although HCL had entered the fibre-optic segment, it was unable to diversify and modernise enough to keep pace with the changing market.
Economic liberalisation deepened the crisis. Private manufacturers entered the telecom cable market in large numbers, intensifying competition and driving down prices. Unlike HCL, these firms were leaner, technologically quicker, and not burdened by the fixed labour and legacy costs of an ageing public sector enterprise.
What followed was a prolonged phase of managed decline. By 2002, the crisis had become official when the company was referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction. Meanwhile, workers continued to go unpaid for months, surviving on delayed government support. Multiple revival proposals of diversification and merger with defence production units, such as the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), were considered, but none were ever implemented.
By the late 2000s, Rupnarayanpur had begun transforming into a “ghost township.” The factory gates remained closed, the machinery lay idle, and an entire local economy built around a single industrial unit had fallen into distress. What emerged was a post-industrial landscape. The crisis was not only one of industrial failure, but also of unplanned development.
That long decline finally acquired a formal end in 2016–17, when the Union Cabinet approved the closure of HCL. All employees were released under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme, assets were put up for disposal, and the company ceased to exist as an operating entity. What remained was land of 947.23 acres, and the question of its reuse.
HCL’s story is not just about technological obsolescence. It is also about what happens when a protected public sector manufacturer loses its captive buyer, fails to reinvent itself in time, and is then kept alive just long enough to decay.
Yashashwi Chandra is an intern under Amader Bengal
Mentored and Edited by Sneha Yadav