Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw is set to travel on a Kavach-fitted train on Tuesday afternoon to test the efficiency of the automatic train protection system in Rajasthan's Sawai Madhopur. As per railway officials, the minister will board the Kavach-fitted engine at 4 pm at Sawai Madhopur railway station and travel for 45 minutes up to Indargarh Railway Station. The Railway Ministry has been working on implementing the Kavach system over the last eight years in an attempt to gradually integrate it across the rail network, they added.
Recently, Vaishnaw announced that work is underway to operationalise the Kavach system on the 3,000-km Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata routes, with completion expected by March next year. Vaishnaw added that the Kavach advanced version 4.0 was approved by the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) on July 17, 2024, and large-scale installation would begin soon. According to Vaishnaw, the Kavach 4.0 would be able to tackle all kinds of communication challenges in all geographical conditions, such as hilly terrain, forest, coastal and desert areas, among others.
What is Kavach technology in Railways?
The indigenous Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System known as 'Kavach' was announced by the Ministry of Railways on March 23, 2022, as a significant step toward improving train safety in the country. The Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) developed Kavach with three Indian vendors and made it the National ATP System for Indian Railways. Kavach was developed to support train operations in adverse weather conditions like dense fog and to assist locomotive pilots in avoiding Signal Passing At Danger (SPAD) and overspeeding.
Kavach system ensures control over train's speed
The system ensures better control over the train's speed and prevents potential accidents by automatically applying brakes when necessary. The vital elements of the Kavach framework include programmed brake application in case the training pilot neglects to act, and the arrangement of line-side signal display in the lodge for further developed permeability in foggy circumstances. According to the Railway Ministry, Kavach's first field trials on passenger trains were started in February 2016 and based on the experience gained and the Independent Safety Assessment of the system by a third party, three firms were approved in 2018-19 for supply of Kavach.
(With PTI inputs)
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