Indian Railways to install ‘Kavach’ anti-collision tech on 3000 km Delhi-Mumbai, Del-Howrah rail route

The Indian Railways plans to armour the 3,000 km of its Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah rail network with the Kavach protection system at an estimated cost of Rs 1000 crore to prevent train collisions. The anti-train collision system or ‘Kavach,’ which means ‘armour, ’enables the train to stop on its own if the system notices any manual error like ‘jumping’ of a red signal or any other malfunction.  

The Railways has floated 11 tenders for the system to be installed over 3000 km and in 760 locomotives. While receivers will be installed along the tracks, transmitters will be fitted inside the locos for the duo to interact with one another continuously using ultra-high radio frequencies to control the brakes of trains and also alert drivers, all based on the logic programmed into them.

The estimated cost of the works to be done on the tracks is Rs 20 lakh per km while the cost of the installation inside the locos will be Rs 60 lakh per loco. Officials said that the tenders have been floated by Northern Railways, North Central Railway, West Central Railway, East Central Railway, Eastern Railway, and Western Railway which will cover the important Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes where the tracks and systems are being upgraded to host a top speed of 160 kmph.

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The South Central Railway, which first showcased Kavach with Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on board one of the trains, has already completed 1445 km of Kavach on its network. The Railways said that the Kavach system has a probability of error is one in 10,000 years and it opens avenues of export of this indigenously developed state-of-the-art technology for the national transporter.

Kavach would be installed across 2000 rail route networks during the current fiscal year of 2022-23 and over 4000-5000 rail route networks in every subsequent year would be brought under this safety system, officials said. 

(With inputs from PTI)

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