Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways commissioned 472.3 route kilometres of Kavach Version 4.0 (Automatic Train Protection System) across three sections of its network, marking another significant milestone in strengthening rail safety.
The newly commissioned sections include Vadodara–Virar (344 km) on the Western Railway, Tuglakabad Junction Cabin–Palwal (35 km) on the Northern Railway, and Manpur–Sarmatanr (93.3 km) on the East Central Railway. With this commissioning, Indian Railways continues to accelerate the deployment of the indigenous Kavach system to enhance train protection, operational safety, and reliability across high-density routes, a Railways Ministry statement said.
Kavach integrates microprocessors, Global Positioning System (GPS), and radio communication technologies to ensure safe train operations. When another train is detected on the same track within a predefined distance, the system alerts the locomotive pilot and, if required, automatically applies brakes through onboard equipment.
This commissioning marks the highest ever route kilometres (RKms) of Kavach commissioned on a single day, as well as in a month. The previous highest commissioning stood at 324 RKm on the Kota–Mathura section of the West Central Railway. With the latest addition, Kavach Version 4.0 has now been commissioned across five zones of Indian Railways.
With this inclusion, Kavach Version 4.0 has been commissioned over a total of 1,306.3 RKms across Indian Railways. Prior to this, Kavach Version 4.0 had been commissioned on 834 RKms. This included the Palwal–Mathura–Nagda section (633 RKm) of the Delhi–Mumbai route and the Howrah–Bardhaman section (105 RKm) of the Delhi–Howrah route. In addition, 96 RKms were commissioned on Gujarat’s first Bajwa (Vadodara)–Ahmedabad section.