AatmaNirbhar Bharat: Indigenously Developed Train Collision Prevention System Kavach Tested Successfully

The Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was in Secunderabad on Friday (March 4) to personally participate in the trial.

The Indian Railways successfully tested the indigenously developed train collision prevention system Kavach in Secunderabad on Friday (March 4). The Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was on board the engine when the system was being tested.

After the successful testing of Kavach, Vaishanw posted a 72-seconds long video with the caption “आत्मनिर्भर भारत की मिसाल- भारत में बनी ‘कवच’ टेक्नोलॉजी। Successfully tested head-on collision. #BharatKaKavach”

The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the deployment of this Made-in-India technology in her Budget presentation this year as part of the AatmaNirbhar Bharat policy.

Designed and developed by Union Railway Ministry’s Research Design & Standards Organisation (RDSO), in partnership with other institutes, Kavach was deployed for field trials on passenger trains in February 2016.

Kavach, which is approved for speeds up to 160 kmph, is also known as Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and Automatic Train Protection System (ATPS).

This indigenously developed technology is SIL4 (Safety Integrity Level – 4) certified, the highest certification level. There is a possibility of only one error in 10,000 years.

“Kavach is one of the cheapest, Safety Integrity Level 4 (SIL-4) certified technologies with the probability of error is 1 in 10,000 years. Also, it opens avenues of export of this indigenous technology for Railways,” the Union Railways Ministry said in a statement. The Union government also aims to bring down the cost of production and export the technology to other countries.

The cost of integrating Kavach in tracks is about Rs 30 lakh to 50 lakh per kilometre, almost a fourth of the cost of equivalent systems developed by the West. Currently, it has been deployed over track length 1,098 km and 65 locomotives in the ongoing projects of the South Central Railway.

Since taking charge as Prime Minister in May 2014, PM Modi has been pushing for Make in India and AatmaNirbhar Bharat. In 2017, PM Modi had turned down an ambitious plan of the Indian Railways to roll out an ETCS-Level 2 system across its network. He asked the Indian Railways to focus on developing an indigenous system that would be more effective and cheaper.