Kavach on Mumbai-Delhi-Kolkata route to be operational by March 2025: Railway Minister

New Delhi: The Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system, Kavach, will become operational on the 3000-km long Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata rail routes by March next year, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.

Vaishnaw said the Kavach advanced version 4.0 was approved by the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) on July 17 and now large-scale installation will begin soon.

The Kavach 4.0 will be able to tackle all kind of communication challenges in all geographical conditions such as hilly terrain, forest, coastal and desert areas, among others, the minister said during a press briefing.

It will also bring a uniformity in the system and the upgradation of the latest version will go on simultaneously in all those places where the previous version of Kavach was installed, he added.

"The railway ministry has also approved the installation of Kavach on 10,000 locomotives in another two years. After that, the remaining 10,000 locomotives will be taken up in a phased manner," Vaishnaw said.

He added, "Besides, in another important development, the ministry has decided to invite tender for 3300 km-long Mumbai-Chennai and Chennai-Kolkata route as well as about 5000 km-long all automatic signalling sections. I think the tender process will be completed in another couple of months and installation will start from October 2024 onwards." Speaking about the enhancement in the installation capacity, Vaishnaw said when the installation work was initially started, the annual capacity was 1,000 km and today it has been ramped up to 4,000 km in a year.

"With the current installation capacity, Kavach will become operational on the Mumbai-Chennai and Chennai-Kolkata route as well as all automatic signalling sections in another three years,” the railway minister said.

He added that three companies have already been given approval for for the Kavach implementation work and two more companies are in the advanced stages of the approval process.

“Once the two new companies join the installation process, our annual capacity will be enhanced from 4,000 km a year to about 5,500 km a year,” he said.

Explaining the installation process of other components of Kavach such as station Kavach, RFID tags on track, and putting up signalling towers, Vaishnaw said that these will happen simultaneously.

"The LiDAR (remote sensing) survey of about 8,000 stations is going to be completed by January next year. We will be utilizing the optical fiber cable laid along the track by the Railtel for communication purposes. Besides, the communication towers along the track and RFID tags on the track will be installed on a mission mode in another two and a half years," the minister said, adding that the station Kavach is the most complex and complicated process.

Elaborating on the limitations of Kavach, the railway minister said that Kavach will not help in detection of cracks or any other obstruction on track but it will take care of the issues related to error in the working of the loco pilots.

“What has come out from all trials is that Kavach will prevent red-signal jumps of trains in 100 per cent cases,” Vaishnaw said. He added that Kavach will not help in enhancing a train's speed which primarily depends on track upgradation along with its fencing.

According to Vaishnaw, Kavach automatically controls the train speed and can apply the brakes if necessary to prevent accidents.

"ATP system is a critical component of modern railway signalling systems, providing a safeguard against human error and ensuring the safe operation of trains," the railway minister said.