With approvals in place, the Ministry of Railways is ready to install Kavach on 10,000 locomotives and all new projects will now have the protection system, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
Speaking to the media, he also said the installation of Kavach on two high density routes –Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah – will be completed this financial year.
“Section by section commissioning will start immediately after upgrading to Kavach 4.0,” he said.
Kavach 4.0 is equipped to cover various terrains across the railway network – from desert to forests and from mountains to coasts and from urban to rural areas.
As per the latest numbers from the Ministry, Kavach has, so far, been deployed on 1,465 route km and 144 locomotives (including Electric Multiple Unit rakes) on South Central Railway. Tenders have been invited for Delhi-Chennai and Mumbai-Chennai sections along with all automatic signalling sections, he said.
Last month, News18 reported that the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) has given approvals to Kavach 4.0, which is being considered final for installation. However, there will be scope to upgrade it in future, as and when the technology will enhance. “With the approval of Kavach 4.0 by RDSO, the Ministry of Railways has approved installation of Kavach 4.0 on 10,000 locomotives. This will help in rapid installation of Kavach over the entire network in a few years,” he said.
Sharing the timeline of Kavach, the Minister said that the journey started in 2014-15 with the installation of pilot project section of 250 km on the South Central Railway.
In 2015-16, first field trials on passenger trains were done, while in 2017-18 Kavach specification version 3.2 was finalised. The next year, three firms were approved by RDSO for installation of the technology.
In July 2020, Kavach was declared as a National Automatic Train Protection System and by March 2022, it was installed on an additional 1,200 route km.
KAVACH
Kavach is an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system. It is highly technology intensive system, which requires safety certification of the highest order.
The technology aids the loco pilot in the operation of the trains within specified speed limits by automatic application of brakes in case loco pilot fails to do so and also helps the train safely run during inclement weather.
Kavach has been certified for highest level of Safety Integrity Level – SIL4 by Independent Safety Assessor and reduces the probability of train collisions in block sections and on running lines at stations through its non-SIL features. With this, Kavach has potential for adoption by other countries.
The Ministry informed the Lok Sabha last month that the progress of main items related to Kavach is as under: laying of optical fiber cable (4,275 km); installation of Telecom Towers (364); provision of equipment at stations (285); provision of equipment in loco (319 locos) and installation of track side equipments (1,384 route Km),” it said.
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