Indian Railways has increased the deadline for setting up automatic train security system ‘armor’ on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata rail routes from March 2025 to December 2025. According to the budget documents released by the Railway Board on 1 February 2025, the work of installing trackside equipment on 3,000 km rail route under Kavach Version 4.0 will be completed by December 2025, while work on the remaining railway blocks is in progress.
Expansion of indigenous technology ‘armor’
Indian Railways adopted indigenously developed ‘armor’ in 2020 as the National Automatic Train Safety (ATP) system. In July 2024, the indigenous specification of the Kavach Edition 4.0 was approved, and now the work of planting armor on 10,000 engines has started.
According to the Ministry of Railways, armor is a complex technology which includes several components:
- RFID tag on the entire railway line
- Telecom towers for communication facility
- Optical fiber cable on the side of the track
- ‘Loco Kavach’ on each locomotive
Placing of armor on railway network continues rapidly
According to railway sources, ‘Kavach’ is being implemented in mission mode on the entire Indian railway network. The research, design and standard organization (RDSO) approved Kavach 4.0 in July 2024, which is now being implemented with advanced features.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, recently addressing the media on budget 2025-26, said that the entire Indian railway network will be equipped with ‘armor’ in the next six years.
The objective of this project is to strengthen railway safety through modern technology, so that accidents can be prevented and passengers can get more safe travel experience.
