Securing The Rails: Kavach Successfully Deployed On 1,465 Km Track

Kavach, the indigenously-built accident prevention system, has so far been deployed on 1,465 route kilometres and 139 locomotives (including electric multiple unit rakes) on South Central Railway, the Rajya Sabha was told.

Presently, Kavach tenders have been awarded for 3,000 km long route of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors.

According to Indian Railways, there are various components involved in implementing the Kavach system in the rail network which include optical fibre cable, installation of telecom towers, equipment in locomotives, at stations and track side.

While laying of optical fibre cable has been carried out on 3,040 Km route, installation of 269 telecom towers has been set up.

Provision of equipment has been made at 186 stations and in 170 locomotives. Installation of track side equipments has been carried on 827 route kilometres.

Kavach system is certified for safety integrity level-4. Further, the certification by independent safety assessor (ISA) is conducted at the time of commissioning, once the whole section is fully equipped and tested.

Works for provision of intrusion detection system to prevent accident involving elephants have been commissioned on 48 route kilometres already identified vulnerable sections over Northeast Frontier Railway.

Further, based on vulnerability of the locations where elephant movements happen frequently over the tracks, works have also been sanctioned on Indian Railway.

The average punctuality of mail/express train services during 2020-21 to 2022-23 was 88.48 per cent. Railway network on broad gauge has been electrified on 61,508 route kilometres upto 31 December 2023.

Indian Railway has witnessed reduction in HSD consumption for diesel locos by 44.64 per cent in the year 2021-22 as compared 2018-19.