NEW DELHI: Moving further to become a total collision-free national mode of transportation for both the passengers and freights services, the Indian Railways has started working on a comprehensive safety plan to commission the country's indigenously developed SIL-4 certified "Train Collision Avoidance System" (TCAS), known as 'Kawach', on almost all the prominent rail routes by 2024.
According to the Railways, the Kawach has been developed basically as an effective technology system to work as an anti-collision device. It has been indigenously developed by the Research Design and Standard Organisation (RDSO) and others associated research firms with a capacity of ensuring the highest degree of accuracy in preventing collision between two trains.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, "Indigenously developed anti-collision technology called Kawach, (TCAS) is SIL-4(Safety Integrity Level) certified. That means there is the probability of a single error in 10,000 years in its efficient working results."
And the Train Collision Avoidance System or Kawach after an on-going initial test in the South Central Railway as on a pilot basis, near Hyderabad, would get a wider installation on more than 2000 routes km of railway networks by 2024.
After the announcement of bringing 2000 km of the rail network under the application of the Kawach safety system as a part of India's Atmanirbhar Bharat, the railways has finally geared up to go on a mission mode for the Kawach installation.
A senior railway official said that the Kawach system brings the train's movement to a halt automatically after it detects that the train had jumped of the Red signal or spots another train on the same railway track from opposite side.
The system installed in a train-loco starts working automatically as soon as it detects anything going wrong in movement of the train by sending alerts to all the concerned authorities, including the train's driver, the next railway station and others over a prescribed radio frequency.
It also applies the emergency break unit into force soon after the train jumps of the red signal or goes beyond prescribed speed on the concerned sections. It is on test-installation linked with the speed-meters, the brake-units and the in-cab display of signal points, the SOS buttons and other safety units of concerned trains.
After initial test of the Kawach, railway sources further added the production of Kawach devices will get a pace for railways. It is currently being put on test as a pilot project on about 600 routes of rail networks near Hyderabad.
Not long ago, Vaishnaw, while making a power-point presentation before the Prime Minister on the Kawach system, had reportedly assured to commission the Kawach system in trains on a larger scale by 2024.
If a railway official is to be believed, the railway minister has also engaged a committee of experts in signalling to report as on how to make a bigger upgradation of Kawach with more and more world- class safety features added.
Sources also said that routes are being identified for near-future installation of Kawach system with the locos of running trains. As per a conservative estimate, railway will have to bear a cost of Rs 10 lakh on the installation of Kawach system per km of rail route.