Kavach 4.0 tenders to be out soon for 10,000 locos: Ashwini Vaishnaw

The Union Ministry of Railways is looking to expedite the rollout of the latest version of the indigenous anti-collision system Kavach during this year by issuing tenders for Kavach 4.0 installation in 20,000 locomotives.

“Two bulk tenders of 10,000 locomotives each would be issued soon. We aim to close one tender by October this year. We sanctioned this capacity last month after Kavach 4.0 was approved by the RDSO (Research Designs and Standards Organisation). The idea is to build a parallel system to ensure seamless coverage. Along with the locomotives, 3,000 Rkm would also have the new system,” Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.

He said the existing network, which is running on earlier versions of Kavach, would also be upgraded to the latest one. “In the next four years, Kavach would cover all types of geographical territories and types of locomotives. New-age locomotives are coming with Kavach 4.0 installed already. In four years, we would have Kavach on 20,000 locomotives,” the minister said.

Tenders have been issued for Delhi-Chennai and Mumbai-Chennai sections ranging 3,300 Rkm and important automatic sections covering 5,000 Rkm.

Vaishnaw also said additionally there would be a separate plan for installing Kavach system at stations. The ministry is aiming to cover 8,000-odd stations with this system in order to boost communication between trains and the stations.

The Kanchenjunga train accident in June this year, which claimed 11 lives, put the spotlight back on Kavach, which was absent on the route. This was the fourth major train accident in last one year, including the triple-train crash at Balasore in Odisha in June 2023, which claimed 293 lives. Kavach system was missing on all these routes.

Kavach is an indigenously built automatic train protection (ATP) system, which was declared India’s national ATP in 2020. Since then the progress of its installation has remained slow. Currently, Kavach covers 2 per cent of India's railway network. It is deployed on 1,465 Rkm and 144 locomotives on South Central Railway.

One major reason for the delay is lack of industrial capacity, Railway Board Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti had said in August 2023. "Kavach is already operational on 1,465 Rkm. Work is in progress for over 3,000 Rkm. But we're facing critical industrial capacity constraints. We would prefer to roll it out much faster. I appeal to the industry to come forward and build capacity for this ATP system," Lahoti had said.

The minister, however, said the capacity has improved significantly now, adding that five “domestic companies” have demonstrated their manufacturing capacity of the Kavach system and are ready to participate in the tenders. “Earlier, there were three suppliers; now two more have come forward. There is enough capacity to meet the demand. In the tenders, we will ask these players to submit bids based on their manufacturing capacity. There is no cap. Price discovery would happen naturally,” he said, responding to a question by this paper on the design of the tenders.