Indian Railways spent Rs 352 crore on Kavach system so far in 2023-24; Know what it is-

The Indian Railways has awarded tenders for the installation of the indigenously developed anti-collision system 'Kavach' on the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors, according to Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw's written response to a question in the Lok Sabha on August 2.

 

 

He added that, so far in 2023-24, Rs 353 crore has been spent on Kavach implementation. The budgetary allocation for Kavach during the year 2023-24 is Rs 710.12 Crores.

 

Vaishnaw further stated that tenders will soon be awarded to install the Kavach system across various regions, including 229 km in West Bengal, 193 km in Jharkhand, 227 km in Bihar, 943 km in Uttar Pradesh, 30 km in Delhi, 81 km in Haryana, 425 km in Rajasthan, 216 km in Madhya Pradesh, 526 km in Gujarat, and 848 km in Maharashtra.

 

The minister clarified that Indian Railways is currently preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) and detailed estimates for the aforementioned installations, and tenders will be awarded once these DPRs are finalized. Vaishnaw also revealed that Kavach has been deployed on 1465 Route km and 121 locomotives (including Electric Multiple Unit rakes) on South Central Railway.

 

It's worth noting that the Indian Railways had only deployed Kavach on 20 route km (RKM) in 2022-23, following deployments of 859 km during 2021-22, and 321 RKM in 2020-21.

 

In earlier years, around 250 km of the railway network was covered by Kavach in 2018-19, and the following year, another 15 km was covered by Kavach.

 

Vaishnaw also told the parliament that at the moment there are three Indian original equipment makers who are approved for Kavach and efforts are being made to develop more vendors to enhance the capacity and scale up the implementation of Kavach.

 

"The Cost for provision of Trackside including Station equipment of Kavach is approximately Rs 50 Lakhs/Km and the cost for the provision of Kavach equipment on the loco is approximately Rs 70 lakh/ loco," Vaishnaw said in his reply.

 

 

The railways has been developing its own automatic protection system since 2012 as Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), which got rechristened Kavach or 'armour'. It was developed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) under Indian Railway (IR) in collaboration with Medha Servo Drives Pvt Ltd, HBL Power Systems Ltd and Kernex Microsystems.

 

Since 2016, the railways has been carrying out field tests for Kavach on passenger trains.

 

The Indian Railways plans to install Kavach across 2,000 rail route networks in 2022-23 and over 4,000-5,000 rail route networks every subsequent year. At the moment Kavach has been deployed on over 1,098 route km and 65 trains running under the South Central Railway after successful trial runs.

 

As part of the new system, railway tracks, signalling systems on railway tracks and the engines of trains are installed with radio frequency devices that continuously send signals back and forth on a real-time basis to indicate that the track on which the train is operating has no obstacles.

 

The devices also continuously relay the signals ahead to the locomotive, making it useful for loco pilots in low visibility. Kavach also controls the speed of the train by an automatic application of brakes in case the loco pilot fails to do so. It helps the loco pilot in running the train during inclement weather conditions such as dense fog.

 

The system is certified for Safety Integrity Level-4 by reputed international safety assessors (ISAs). Similar safety systems are followed in other countries. Further operational improvement of Kavach is in the works, including change over from Ultra High Frequency (UHF) communication to LTE-4G communication.

At the moment, Kavach uses ultra-high frequency radio waves but the Indian Railways is working to make it compatible with 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology and develop the product for global markets.