Explained: What is the 'KAWACH' technology that FM referred to during Budget? 

During her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that 2,000 km of India’s railway network will be brought under the indigenously developed KAWACH technology aimed at safety and capacity augmentation in 2022-23 as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

“As a part of Atmanirbhar Bharat, 2,000 km of rail network will be brought under the indigenous world-class technology KAWACH, for safety and capacity augmentation in 2022-23,” Sitharaman said during her Budget speech.

Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that KAWACH is an indigenously developed, SIL4-certified anti-collision technology aimed at reducing railway accidents. He further added that there is a probability of a single error in 10,000 years. “Indigenously-developed anti-collision technology KAWACH is SIL4 certified which means there is the probability of a single error in 10,000 years,” Vaishnaw said. KAWACH is also known as the Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) or Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system.
 
This technology will stop the train movement automatically when it senses another train on the same line within a said distance. According to the chairman of the Industrial Affairs Committee at PHDCCI, Sandeep Aggarwal, "This is an excellent Budget... The announcement regarding 'Kawach' is going to be a gamechanger for Railways. This indigenous technology will improve the density as well as the speed of train movement in India."
 
Besides this, Sitharaman also announced 400 Vande Bharat trains over the next 3 years. These new trains will be made of light-weight aluminium and will be around 50 tonnes lighter in weight. Currently, 2 Vande Bharat trains are in operations and contracts have already been awarded for another 44 trains in the category. The 400 trains announced in the Budget will be in addition to these trains.

Vaishnaw said the testing of the second version of these trains will start from April and serial production will begin from August. Going further, Sitharaman also unveiled plans to develop 100 ‘PM GatiShakti’ Cargo Terminals for multimodal logistics facilities during the next 3 years and added that contracts for multimodal parks at 4 locations will be awarded in the next fiscal.

“PM GatiShakti is a transformative approach for economic growth and sustainable development. The approach is driven by seven engines, namely Roads, Railways, Airports, Ports, Mass Transport, Waterways and Logistics Infrastructure. All seven engines will pull forward the economy in unison,” Sitharaman said.

The 2022-23 Budget earmarked Rs 1.4 lakh crore for the Railway Ministry, an increase of Rs 20,311 crore from the revised estimates of the previous fiscal. Railways has also got a capex push of Rs 2.45 lakh crore in 2022-23, 14 percent higher than the budgeted capital expenditure of Rs 2.15 lakh crore for the current financial year.

Also read: Indian Railways likely to get Rs 2.5 lakh crore outlay in FY23

Also read: Budget 2022: 400 new Vande Bharat trains to be manufactured in 3 years, says FM Sitharaman