Railways okays Rs 201 crore Kavach project to enhance safety on 811 km route in Ambala division
New Delhi, June 15
In a major step towards strengthening railway safety, Indian Railways has approved the installation of Kavach on the remaining 811 km broad gauge sections of the Ambala Division of the Northern Railway with an investment of Rs 201 crore, according to an official statement issued on Monday.
The sanctioned work will cover important rail routes in the Ambala Division, including Ambala Cantonment-Ludhiana, Kalka-Chandigarh-New Morinda-Sahnewal, Sirhind-Daulatpur Chowk, Rajpura-Bathinda-Shri Ganganagar, and Ludhiana-Dhuri-Jakhal sections.
These routes serve as key rail corridors connecting the states of Haryana, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh. They handle substantial passenger and freight traffic and play an important role in the movement of people and goods across the region.
The work has been approved under the umbrella programme for the provision of Kavach with LTE-based communication backbone on balance routes of the Railways.
Kavach is an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system designed to enhance operational safety. It helps prevent Signal Passing at Danger (SPAD), automatically applies brakes when required to avert unsafe situations, controls train speed in critical conditions, and significantly reduces the risk of collisions.
Indian Railways is progressively expanding Kavach across its network as part of its ongoing efforts to improve safety, reliability and capacity on high-density and strategically important routes.
Multiple projects worth Rs 1,364.45 crore have been approved to strengthen safety, signalling and communication infrastructure across its network. The sanctioned works include the provision of Kavach on locomotives, the expansion of optical fibre cable network, and the replacement of panel interlocking with electronic interlocking systems across various railway zones.
Indian Railways earlier sanctioned three itemised works in the Northern Railway at a total cost of Rs 400.86 crore for strengthening the communication backbone infrastructure. These works are part of a separate umbrella project approved at a cost of Rs 4,871 crore.
A sub-umbrella provision of Rs 871 crore has been allocated for Northern Railway for the laying of fibre cables along 926.05 route km in Ambala Division, along 1,204 route km along with Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) rooms at stations in Delhi Division, and along 1,074 route km in Lucknow Division. These works aim to enhance the capacity and reliability of communication systems across divisions, which are critical for modern signalling and Kavach deployment.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Impressive to see India developing homegrown tech like Kavach. Coming from the US, I know how expensive and complex train control systems can be. This LTE backbone is smart too – it'll help with modern signaling. Hope the implementation is as good as the planning. India's railway network is enormous, so progress needs to be steady.
Good move, but I wish they'd focus on the smaller stations too. The Kalka-Shimla route is narrow gauge and sees many tourists – safety there is equally important. Still, for the Ambala division which handles heavy freight and passenger traffic, this Kavach system is much needed. Let's hope the optical fiber work doesn't get delayed.
It's great to see Indian Railways investing in safety tech. The Kavach system sounds similar to Europe's ETCS Level 2. Rs 201 crore for 811 km is about Rs 25 lakh per km – that's actually quite cost-effective compared to international standards. I've travelled on Indian trains and the network is impressive. Hope this expansion continues across the whole country.
While this is a positive step, I have to point out that we've been hearing about Kavach for years but the rollout has been slow. The 201 crore is a lot of money – I hope they've done proper tendering and there's no corruption. That said, the SPAD prevention is critical. I've seen how drivers sometimes overshoot signals due to negligence. Technology can help.
Am from Punjab and travel on the Ludhiana-Dhuri-Jakhal section often – the number of unmanned crossings and
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