Kavach railway safety system: The Ministry of Railways has approved the proposal to install Kavach, an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system over 443 Route km (RKM) across West Bengal. The move will significantly enhance passenger safety by preventing train collisions and over-speeding. It will also strengthen safe and reliable train operations across the region.
The Kavach installation will be completed at an estimated cost of Rs 223.83 crore. “Eastern Railway has taken a significant step towards strengthening rail safety with the approval of the work for provision of the indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system, Kavach, over the balance uncovered section of 443 Route Kilometres on its network, at an estimated cost of Rs. 223.83 crore,” it said.
The approved Kavach installation project in West Bengal will cover 15 important sections of the Eastern Railway zone. These are as follows:
“The work forms part of the larger umbrella project titled “Provision of Kavach with communication backbone of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) on balance routes of Indian Railways (Umbrella Work 2024–25)”, which has been approved under the Works, Machinery & Rolling Stock Programme (Pink Book) 2024–25 at a total cost of Rs. 27,693 crore. Under this umbrella, a sub-umbrella allocation of Rs. 896 crore has been sanctioned for Eastern Railway,” it said.
Approved by RDSO on July 16, 2024, the Kavach version 4.0 covers all the major features required for the diverse railway network. Major improvement in Version 4.0 includes increased Location Accuracy, Improved Information of Signal Aspects in bigger yards, Station to Station Kavach interface on OFC and Direct Interface to existing Electronic Interlocking System. With these improvements, Kavach Version 4.0. is planned for large scale deployment over Indian Railways.