Experimental work on the preparation of high-silica glass preforms and drawing of multimode fibres therefrom have been presented. The details of the MCVD technique including salient features of dopant control programmes have been elaborated after describing briefly the basic equipment for preform fabrication; the fibre drawing technique has also been described in detail. The drawing parameters have been studied in terms of coating thickness variations. Tl'llnsmission characteristics of fibres of twenty representative runs have been reported and discussed in order to assess their suitability for use in optical communication systems.