Railways Fortifying 900​-kilometre Route in UP with Kavach, Work Started between Lucknow And Kanpur

Kavach, the indigenously developed automatic train protection (ATP) system, is being applied on over 900 route kilometres in Uttar Pradesh including 800 rkm between Sahibabad and Chandauli, the government informed the Rajya Sabha last week. In a statement, the Ministry of Railways said that Kavach is a highly technology-intensive system, which requires safety certification of the highest order.

Darshana Singh, Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Uttar Pradesh, had asked the ministry about the implementation of the Kavach system in the state.

Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the application of Kavach has commenced in UP, between Lucknow and Kanpur (about 70 km).

It is also underway on the around 800-km route between Sahibabad and Saidraja section, covering Ghaziabad, Kanpur, and Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction.

Work is also progressing on a 75-km route between Hodal, Mathura, and the Rani Kund Rarah section.

​The first field trials on the passenger trains were started in February 2016. Based on the experience gained, and independent safety assessment of the system by a third party – Independent Safety Assessor (ISA) – three firms were approved in 2018-19, for the supply of Kavach.

Subsequently, Kavach was adopted as a national ATP system in July 2020.

“Kavach has so far been deployed on 1,465 route kilometres and 121 locomotives (including electric multiple unit rakes) on South Central Railway,” the ministry said.

Also, Kavach tenders have been awarded for Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors, around 3,000 rkm, and work is in progress on these routes of Eastern, East Central, North Central, Northern, West Central, and Western Railway zones.

“Indian Railways is preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) and detailed estimate for another 6,000 rkm. The amount spent so far on Kavach implementation is Rs 351.91 crore. The cost for provision of track side including station equipment of Kavach is approximately Rs 50 lakhs per km and cost for provision of Kavach equipment on loco is approximately Rs 70 lakh per loco,” the ministry added.

Presently, there are three Indian OEMs who are approved for Kavach.

“Efforts are being made to develop more vendors to enhance the capacity and scale up the implementation of Kavach,” they added.