Railway targets to bring 44,000 km under Kavach in 5 years
Railway targets to bring 44,000 km under Kavach in 5 years
NEW DELHI: Barely days after the West Bengal rail accident, railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday instructed railway officials to expedite the deployment of Kavach system and take this up in a planned manner in mission mode.
Sources said the railway ministry also informed the Cabinet Secretary on Friday that the national transporter will bring 44,000 km under Kavach in the next five years. Kavach is an automatic train protection system that can prevent train collisions on the same track.
Chairing a review meeting on the latest version of Kavach 4.0, Vaishnaw instructed officials to install the system on all locos as soon as it is ready. Officials said while currently there are three manufacturers of Kavach system, more manufacturers are developing it and these are in various stages.
Officials said the railways has set the target to complete installing Kavach on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah route by March 2024 and tenders for another 6,000-km would be floated by this year end.
Most major railway systems in the world moved to automatic train protection system (ATP) akin to Kavach in the 1980s. Indian Railway started this journey with approval of the first version of Train Collision Avoidance System (TACS) in 2016. The system went through trials and was tested to achieve SIL-4 in 2019, the highest level of safety certification.
This was subsequently approved as the national ATP system in 2020.
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