The Indian Railways has approved works of KAVACH on more than 34,000-km route on high density and highly utilised networks, after the deployment of the indigenous Automatic Train Protection and Warning (ATP) system to enhance safety of trains over 1,400 km of the South Central Railway Zone, a statement by the Railway Board said.
According to the Ministry’s response to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways submitted earlier this week, currently, KAVACH rollout is planned on the New Delhi-Mumbai and New Delhi-Howrah routes. Targeted for completion by March 2024, it will cover over 3,000 km. “Further, rollout will be planned based on the experience,” the Board said.
The Committee, with Radha Mohan Singh as the Chairperson, lauded the initiative of the Railways and hoped that it would go a long way in bringing down the rate of accidents. The Board was responding to the Committee’s desire that in the coming years, the allocation on safety should be enhanced, so that KAVACH can be implemented in entire areas/sections of Indian Railways.
The Board, in its reply, said: “Works of KAVACH for more than 34,000 route km on High Density Network (HDN) / Highly Utilized Network (HUN) routes have been approved on Indian Railways.”
It also said that in addition to the trial section of 250 km, KAVACH is under implementation on 1,200-km of South Central Railway, on Bidar-Parli Vaijnath-Parbhani and Manmad-Parbhani-Nanded-Secunderabad- Gadwal-Dhone-Guntakal section.
The Indian Railways has made a provision of Rs 272.30 crore in Financial Year 2022-23 for implementation of KAVACH in comparison to Rs 133 crore in 2021-22.
THE INDIGENOUS SYSTEM
To prevent accidents due to human error resulting in “signal passing at danger” and “over speeding”, the Indian Railways has developed indigenous ATP System, known as KAVACH.
“This is achieved by automatic application of brakes whenever the train speed exceeds safety limits. KAVACH also helps in running trains during inclement weather such as dense fog when visibility of the signals is hampered,” the Ministry said.
In a separate statement in the Rajya Sabha earlier this week, the Ministry said that so far, KAVACH has been deployed on 1,455 km on South Central Railway with 77 locomotives.
KAVACH is designed to have continuous update of movement authority and for prevention of speeding, collision between two locos equipped with functional Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and Signal Passing At Danger (SPAD). It also enables display of signal aspect in the loco pilot’s cab.
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