The Indian Railways has approved the expansion of indigenous Kavach protection system for over 1,478 kilometres of the Northern Railway network as part of its efforts to strengthen rail safety and modernise the railway infrastructure in the country.
This Rs 362 crore worth project will cover key routes under the Firozpur and Jammu divisions.
Under this project, the Kavach protection system will be installed on the remaining 1,012 kilometre route of the Firozpur division for Rs 241 crore. Similarly, it will be installed on 466 kilometre route of the Jammu division's for Rs 121 crore.
The Kavach protection system, which has been indigenously developed to prevent collisions between trains, will be installed alongside railway tracks. In addition to this, 40-metre-high communication towers and antenna infrastructure will be developed to ensure seamless and efficient functioning of the system.
This will help making the railway infrastructure of the Northern Railways become more safe, reliable and smoother.
Indian Railways' bid to make infrastructure safer
Last month, the Indian Railways approved multiple projects worth Rs 1,364 crore to strengthen safety, signalling and communication infrastructure across its network. This included installing Kavach equipment for 232 locomotives in Southern Railway for Rs 208 crore.
Besides, it had also sanctioned three itemised works in Northern Railway for Rs 400 crore to strengthen the communication backbone infrastructure. These works are part of the umbrella project titled “Strengthening, repair & replacement of communication backbone over Indian Railways (Umbrella Work 2024–25)”, the Indian Railways had said in a statement.
"A sub-umbrella provision of ₹871 crore has been allocated for Northern Railway," the railways had said. "Under this, three works have been approved: provision of 2×48 fibre cables along 926.05 route km in Ambala Division at a cost of ₹115.74 crore; provision of 2×48 fibre cables along 1,204 route km along with Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) rooms at stations in Delhi Division at a cost of ₹165.49 crore; and provision of 2×48 fibre cables along 1,074 route km in Lucknow Division at a cost of ₹119.63 crore."
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