CHENNAI: The Southern Railway has informed the Madras HC that installation of optical fibre cable (OFC)-based Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is being installed for preventing elephant deaths due to the animals crossing railway tracks between Coimbatore and Palakkad, bordering TN and Kerala.
The submission was made before a special bench of Justices N Sathish Kumar and D Bharatha Chakravarthy handling forest related cases in status report filed through advocate PT Ramkumar, counsel for the railways.
IDS is a technology based on distortion of signals in OFC laid along tracks spread up to 40 metres either side, and the general manager of Southern Railway has sanctioned Rs 18.99 crore, the report stated, adding the system is currently implemented in North Frontier Railway.
It informed after completing the tender process, contract was awarded on August 1 for the cost of Rs 7.85 crore in Kerala region and Rs 11.14 crore in Tamil Nadu region to MS Bitcom Technologies, Noida.
The southern railway, further, stated OFC-based Distributed Acoustic Sensing with AI enabled Elephant Intrusion Detection System is successfully functioning in the North East Frontier Railway in Assam with the objective of development of an “effective system for detection of elephant intrusion”.
This system can detect movement of elephant in advance of 30-40 metres near the track. Audio/visual alarm can be generated in real time on detection of elephant near the tracks and speed of the train can be controlled. Thus life of the elephant may be saved, possibility of derailment and disruption of operations can be averted, the status report informed.