An unusually large crowd gathered on Thursday afternoon at the shoreline near Srinivasapuram in Foreshore Estate. They huddled there to watch excavators dig up deep pits on the coastline, curious about why flipper-clad divers were entering the waters and others on a small boat were busy investigating this part of the sea.What the onlookers did not know was that these men were working on an ambitious telecom project called `Bay of Bengal Gateway' (BBG) to connect Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Chennai with undersea optical fibre cable.Neither did they picture how trillions of bytes of information -images, data, music, film, life-saving and life-making communication -would soon whoosh, laser-like, under the sea through the transoceanic cable.“The 8,000-km-long cable will link Malaysia and Singapore with the Middle East and will have connections reaching out to India and Sri Lanka,“ an official at the site said. The project is being carried out by a consortium that includes Vodafone, Omantel, Etisalat, Reliance Jio Infocom, Dialog Axiata and Telekom Malaysia.Teams are digging 3-metre-deep pits through which the cables will traverse underwater. They are covered with corrosion-free pipes that carry the cable to other international destinations. The team working in Chennai will move to Mumbai next week.The consortium has completed cable laying work in Malaysia and Oman.“In Chennai we began work on Wednesday and it will take a week. The work is restricted to this part of the shore,“ added the official.Reliance Industry Limited said the BBG subsea cable system will in future extend across Europe, Africa and Far East through interconnections with existing and new cable systems in India and the Middle East. Work on Chennai section of the project began on Wednesday at the shoreline near Srinivasapuram in Foreshore Estate