Budget 2022-23: Kavach To Be Rolled Out On 160 Kmph Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Howrah Routes

Fulfilling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Atma Nirbhar vision, the Railways would roll out indigenously developed Kavach, an accident prevention system, on 2,000 km in the high density routes of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah sections.

Besides, the Railways has decided to cover 6,000 km high density routes of Mumbai-Chennai and Howrah-Chennai for which the survey work is being carried out while there is a plan to install Kavach in a section of the Eastern DFC.

Since there is a proposal to export Kavach to other countries, the Railways would cover 8,000 km route at least before exporting the indigenously developed technology.

The Railways has already started work on upgrading the track to run train at 160 kmph on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes. So there is a need for the induction of Kavach, the automatic train protection system, to enhance safety for running trains at higher speed.

To begin with, 2,000 km of the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah would be covered with Kavach and later on the system would be extended the entire sections.

Kavach will not only aid loco pilots to avoid signal passing at danger (SPAD) and over speeding but also help in train running during inclement weather such as dense fog, said a senior Railway Ministry official.

The indigenous automatic train protection system, Kavach, is being planned to be rolled out on the entire high density routes of the rail network covering 34,468 km.

Developed by RDSO, the research wing of the Railways, in association with three Indian vendors - Medha, HBL and Kernex, the system is capable of speed control by automatic application of brakes in case a loco pilot fails to do so.

Signal aspects in the cab are useful for higher speeds, foggy weather. The system enables the signal aspects in the loco pilot's cab continuously which can be helpful for high speed and also during foggy weather. Kavach can also be interfaced with existing interlockings including relay-based interlockings.

Currently, a developmental project has been undertaken on the absolute block section of Lingampalli-Vikarabad-Wadi, Vikarabad-Bidar section of South Central Railway.

Further, regular works of Kavach on Bidar-Parli Vaijnath-Parbhani and Manmad-Parbhani-Nanded-Secunderabad-Gadwal-Dhone-Guntakal sections of South Central Railway sanctioned and contracts for the work have been awarded.

RDSO has also invited expressions of interest for expansion of the vendor base for development of Kavach. Two more vendors have applied for development of Kavach and their product is under development.

In Budget 2022-23, it was announced that Kavach will be rolled out on 2,000 km of Indian Railways.