Accident highlights Railways’ tardiness on Kavach installation

MUMBAI: The indigenously developed anti-collision system by Indian Railways called Kavach is once again the subject of discussion after the Kanchanjunga Express accident in Siliguri on Monday. The passenger train derailed after a goods train rammed into it, causing many fatalities.

Indian Railways is talking about calling for bids for 10,000 km of route for Kavach. However, one of the foremost routes on the Mumbai-Surat-Ahmedabad-Delhi corridor, where work on installing Kavach is underway and was supposed to be completed this month, is going very slowly.

Currently, Kavach contracts have been awarded for the Delhi-Mumbai (including the Ahmedabad-Vadodara section) and Delhi-Howrah (including the Lucknow-Kanpur section) corridors, covering approximately 3,000 route km across Eastern Railway, East Central Railway, North Central Railway, Northern Railway, West Central Railway and Western Railway (WR).

WR had awarded three separate contracts for each section, totalling 735 route km, along with 90 locomotives for Kavach. On Tuesday, WR authorities said that the installation of Kavach was in progress on the Virar-Surat section covering 206 route km.

“The trial of Kavach installation for 45 route km from Bilimora to Bhestan has been successfully done, and the system is ready for commissioning,” said a senior WR official. “The installation work is in its final stages for 67 route km from Sanjan to Bilimora, and we are aiming to have a trial on June 29. With this, a total of 112 route km will be ready for the commissioning of Kavach in Mumbai division.”

The trials will test how the train is protected from SPAD (Signal Passed at Danger), collision and proper following of speed restrictions. Apart from the tracks, Kavach will be installed in engines too.

A total of 60 locomotives have been fitted with onboard Kavach equipment by WR and are ready to run. “We expect to finish installing Kavach in all 90 locomotives by this July end,” said another WR official. “Work on installing it on the 206-route-km from Virar to Surat will continue during the monsoon as well.”

The stretches where WR is fitting the Kavach system are on the 336-km Virar-Surat-Vadodara route, 96 km on the Vadodara-Ahmedabad section and 303 km on the Vadodara-Ratlam-Nagda section. The authorities did not give an update on the other sections where work on Kavach is underway.

Kavach has so far been deployed on 1,465 km. Preparatory work is on for 6,000 km and another 10,000 km will be open for bids soon. The plan is to deploy Kavach on the entire 70,000 route km.