Six months after Odisha train accident, Kavach extended by only 10 km

More than six months after a major train accident in Odisha killed 296 people, the Kavach system introduced by the Union government for rail safety has only been extended by about 10 km. In June, when the accident took place in Balasore of Odisha, Kavach had been deployed on 1,455 km of railway tracks across the country, but it was not implemented on the route of the tragedy. Six months later, answering a question about Kavach at the Rajya Sabha, the Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw mentioned that the system has been deployed on 1,465 route km on South Central Railway. Work on other routes, like the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors, covering about 3000 km, is only in progress.

The Odisha accident had raised a lot of questions about rail safety since Kavach, an automatic train protection system that could have avoided or reduced the effect of the accident, was not yet fully implemented more than 10 years after its inception. Kavach would have reduced the probability of the collision between three trains that had resulted in the Odisha mishap, by triggering a reduction in speed. The Coromandel Express had first collided with a goods train and later, three of its derailed coaches crashed with another train on the adjacent track - the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express.

Read: Train anti-collision tech Kavach deployed only on 1,445 km of India’s rail tracks

On the Railway Ministry's reply about Kavach, it is said that the system has been implemented on 130 locomotives so far. The routes it covers are: Lingamapalli – Vikarabad – Wadi and Vikarabad - Bidar section (265 Rkm), Manmad-Mudkhed-Dhone-Guntkal section (959Rkm) and Bidar-Parbhani section (241Rkm). It also states that the Railway Department has taken up the preparatory works of another 6,000 km.

Answering another question about the Odisha accident, the Ministry said that the collision had occurred due to the lapses in the signalling. 

Watch: Odisha Train Accident: Questions the Railways and Govt has to answer|