Indian Railways sanctioned over Rs 381 crore for Kavach safety expansion and electric locomotive maintenance infrastructure development projects.
New Delhi
Indian Railways has approved two major infrastructure projects worth a combined Rs 381 crore to strengthen railway safety and enhance locomotive maintenance facilities across key sections of its network. The initiatives include the expansion of the indigenous Kavach Version 4.0 train protection system and the creation of additional maintenance infrastructure for electric locomotives, reflecting the national transporter’s continued emphasis on safety, operational efficiency and technological advancement.
According to an official statement issued on Friday, Indian Railways has sanctioned an investment of Rs 206 crore for the installation of the Kavach Version 4.0 enhanced safety system across 680 route kilometres of the Rewari-Delhi and Shakurbasti-Bathinda railway sections, including feeder branch lines, under the Delhi Division of Northern Railway.
The project forms part of the nationwide rollout of Kavach, India’s indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system. The technology has been designed to improve railway safety by preventing Signal Passed at Danger (SPAD) incidents and reducing the risk of train collisions through continuous monitoring and automatic intervention when required.
Kavach continuously supervises train movements and automatically applies brakes whenever a train is at risk of violating safety parameters. The system also enables trains to operate safely at the maximum permissible speed while ensuring reliable services even under challenging weather conditions such as dense fog, which often affects railway operations in northern India.
Railway officials said the deployment of Kavach Version 4.0 on these strategically important and high-density routes will significantly enhance operational safety, improve efficiency, increase reliability and facilitate faster movement of both passenger and freight trains through the use of advanced indigenous technology.
In a separate approval, Indian Railways has sanctioned a Rs 175 crore project for the creation of additional homing facilities for 250 three-phase electric locomotives at the High Horse Power (HHP) Diesel Shed in Raipur under the South East Central Railway (SECR).
Homing refers to assigning a locomotive to a designated maintenance depot that serves as its permanent operational base. The homing shed is responsible for carrying out scheduled maintenance, routine inspections, repairs and overall upkeep to ensure locomotives remain safe, reliable and available for regular operations.
The expansion has been approved in response to the rapid growth of India’s electric locomotive fleet and the increasing demand for freight and passenger transportation across the railway network. As Indian Railways continues to electrify more routes, the need for modern maintenance facilities has also grown substantially.