Why Kavach train protection moving at a slow pace?  

The contracts awarded for the deployment of Kavach, Indigenous Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System, by Indian Railways in 2021 have yet to be commissioned. This shows the system's slow progress, as it has been implemented in just 2% of the railway network since it was adopted in 2020.  

Concerned over the slow progress of Kavach deployment, a parliamentary standing committee recommended that railways take measures to expedite the rollout in its recent report.

Kavach was adopted as a National ATP system in July 2020 and three firms were approved in 2018-19, for supply of Kavach. As of now Kavach version 3.2 has been deployed on 1465 route km on South Central Railway and version 4.0 was approved in July 2024.

What is it taking time?

“Kavach has been a top priority for the Ministry of Railways but has not even covered 2% in the last 5 years. The agencies behind are hardly 2-3 and they are very small and cannot undertake large-scale level implementation,” Lalit Chandra Trivedi, former Indian Railways General Manager, tells Business Today.
He says that the contracts awarded in 2021, when he was General Manager, East Central Railway, have not been commissioned yet.

“There is something wrong and railways need to focus on implementation. The budget cannot do anything until implementation is been in place. The budget has never been a constraint since the BJP government and the problem is with the strategy. Why things aren’t moving is not a problem with the government with railways,” he adds.     

According to experts, Kavach is a highly technology-intensive system, which requires safety certification of the highest order.

The elements involve -- installation of a system at each and every station, block section, installation of RFID tags throughout the track length, telecom towers throughout the section, laying of optical fibre cable along the track and provision of equipment on each and every locomotive.

Progress

Bids for track side works of Kavach for approximately 15000 route km have been invited, according to railways. Three OEMs are approved for supply of Kavach System and trials and approval of more OEMs are at different stages.

By now more than 9000 technicians, operators and engineers have been trained on Kavach technology. The project for equipping 10,000 Locomotives has been finalized. 69 numbers of loco sheds have been prepared for equipping with Kavach.