Northern Railway funds Kavach 4.0 on the last 712 kilometres in Moradabad

The Ministry of Railways on Tuesday approved Rs 170 crore to fit Kavach version 4.0 on the remaining 712 route kilometres of Moradabad Division, Northern Railway. A ministry note said the work will add the indigenous automatic train protection system to those sections and form part of the wider plan to spread Kavach across the network. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the Lok Sabha in July that version 4.0 had been commissioned on 2,633 route kilometres as of 31 July.

Kavach is designed to stop a train that is about to pass a red signal, to apply brakes when a collision risk is calculated, and to enforce speed limits in defined stretches. The system is certified to Safety Integrity Level 4, the top rung used for signalling. It needs working trackside equipment, onboard units in locomotives, and a radio link that stays up at line speed. Fitting a division is not a software patch. It is cables, towers, locomotive visits and a testing calendar.

Why Moradabad still had a gap

Moradabad Division sits on Northern Railway's heavy passenger and freight map, with routes that feed Delhi and the plains beyond. Earlier Kavach work in the division left 712 kilometres uncovered. Tuesday's sanction is the remainder, not a new idea. The figure of Rs 170 crore works out to about Rs 24 lakh per route kilometre on simple division. Actual cost per kilometre varies with tunnels, curves, station density and how many locomotives that section uses.

The same package cleared an 11-kilometre bypass between the Adra end and Joychandipahar on South Eastern Railway at Rs 272 crore. That is a civil project, not a signalling project. Combined, the two sanctions are Rs 442 crore.

What commissioning numbers hide

2,633 commissioned kilometres is a small share of Indian Railways' route length, which is above 68,000 kilometres. The political promise after a run of rear-end collisions has been national coverage. The engineering constraint is locomotive fitment and the need to keep both old and new signalling live during changeover. A division can have Kavach on the track and still run trains whose cabs have not been equipped. Those trains do not get the brake intervention.

Version 4.0 is the current production standard. Earlier versions taught the project how the radio behaves in monsoon and in cuttings. The Moradabad remainder will be judged on whether the 712 kilometres go live with matching onboard units, not on whether the sanction letter was signed.

For passengers the test is crude. Does the system stop a driver who misses a red? The official literature says yes when both ends are fitted and the link is healthy. Tuesday's money buys the missing stretch in one busy division. It does not finish the national job.