Kavach on fast track: 40,000 personnel trained, Version 4.0 commissioned, says Minister

More than 40,000 technicians, operators and engineers have been trained on Kavach, the indigenous automatic train protection technology. This includes 30,000 loco pilots and assistant loco pilots. Courses have been designed in collaboration with the Indian Railways Institute of Signal Engineering and Telecommunications (IRISET), Secunderabad, informed Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

Kavach is a technology-intensive system, which requires safety certification of the highest order (SIL-4). It aids the loco pilot in running of trains within specified speed limits through automatic application of brakes in case they fail to do so and also helps the trains run safely during inclement weather.

It involves installation of ‘Station Kavach’ at every station, block section, RFID tags throughout the track length, telecom towers throughout the section, laying of Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) along the track, provision of ‘Loco Kavach’ on every locomotive in the Indian Railways network.

The cost for provision of track side including station equipment of Kavach is approximately ₹50 lakh/km and cost for provision of equipment on locomotives is approximately ₹80 lakh/loco. South Central Railway (SCR) has deployed Kavach version 3.2 on 1,465 route km and based on the experience gained, further improvements were made. Kavach 4.0 was approved by the Research Designs & Standards Organisation, last year.

Major improvement in Version 4.0 includes increased location accuracy, improved information of signal aspects in bigger yards, station to station interface on OFC and direct interface to existing electronic interlocking system, said the Minister.

Kavach Version 4.0 has been successfully commissioned on 738 Route/km on Palwal – Mathura- Nagda section (633 Rkm) on Delhi – Mumbai route and Howrah–Bardhaman section (105 Rkm) Delhi – Howrah route and in the balance sections of Delhi – Mumbai & Delhi – Howrah corridors. Track side Kavach implementation work has been taken up on 15,512 RKm, covering all the high density sections, said Mr. Vaishnaw.

Bids have been invited for equipping another 9,069 locomotives with Kavach version 4.0. Funds utilised on Kavach works until October this year is ₹2,354.36 crore and allocation this year is ₹1,673.19 crore, he added.