Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Indian Railways has incurred capital expenditure of over Rs 1.14 lakh crore or about 39 per cent of the budgetary allocation for 2026-27 till July, while expanding the deployment of its indigenous train collision avoidance system Kavach and upgrading tracks to support higher train speeds, the Government informed Parliament on August 5.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government had spent Rs 1,14,973 crore out of the budgetary allocation of Rs 2,93,030 crore for the current financial year.
The minister said expenditure on safety-related activities has increased steadily over the years, rising from Rs 39,200 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,20,389 crore in 2026-27.
On Kavach, the indigenous Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system, Vaishnaw said Version 4.0 has been commissioned over 2,633 route kilometres as of July 31, covering key sections of the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah high-density corridors.
The upgraded version incorporates higher location accuracy, improved signal information in larger yards, optical fibre-based station-to-station interfaces and direct integration with electronic interlocking systems, enabling large-scale deployment across the railway network, he said.
Trackside Kavach implementation has been taken up over 21,794 route km covering the Golden Quadrilateral, Golden Diagonal, high-density network and other identified sections, while Kavach has been installed in 6,290 locomotives.
Work is also underway to equip another 7,190 locomotives and 1,200 EMU/MEMU rakes with the system.
