Indian Railways has made ‘Safety’ its topmost priority and is undertaking various initiatives to ensure the prevention of train accidents. In this context, the national transporter has indigenously developed an automatic train protection system – Kavach (Train Collision Avoidance System). The move aims at preventing accidents due to human error resulting in Signal Passing at danger and over-speeding.
Implementation of Kavach system:-
The Kavach is being implemented in a focused manner as per priority set by the Railway Board. In its first priority, the railway will implement this system on High Density Routes and on New Delhi – Mumbai and New Delhi – Howrah Sections. It will bring around 34,000 kms of network under Kavach.
Tender work for Kavach:-
The North Western Railway (NWR) has awarded tenders worth Rs 426 crore for the train protection system to be rolled out on 1600 kms across the zone. It is targeted to complete the work by 2025. The zonal railway currently operates three Vande Bharat Express trains that are equipped with Kavach. Therefore, the anti-collision device cannot be used in this railway zone since it has not yet been introduced in this part of the country. The NWR zone has its jurisdiction across four states – Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana.
The tender work has also been awarded for Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah corridors (approximately 3000 Route km) and work is in progress on these routes. It is also preparing a DPR (Detailed Project Report) and detailed estimate for another 6000 RKm.
Cost of Kavach:-
The Cost for provision of Track side including Station equipment of Kavach is approximately Rs 50 Lakhs per Km and cost for provision of Kavach equipment on loco is approximately Rs 70 lakh per loco. The amount spent so far on Kavach implementation is Rs 351.91 Crores. In the financial year 2023-24, the Ministry of Railways has allocated a budgetary fund of Rs 710.12 crores.