Southern Railway to roll out Kavach on Ernakulam-Shoranur stretch

The Southern Railway will soon roll out Kavach, an indigenous train collision prevention and avoidance system, on the busy rail corridor in the State from Ernakulam South to Shoranur Junction. The Kerala Rail Development Corporation (K-Rail)-SS Rail joint venture has been awarded the contract to implement the project.

The project, which is expected to cost ₹105.8 crore, is to be completed in 18 months in the 106.8 km-long corridor. The project will be completed on time, said V. Ajith Kumar, Director (Business, Development, and Finance), who is also Managing Director in-charge of K-Rail. This will be the first segment in Kerala to implement the Kavach safety system. The new project comes after the introduction of an automatic signalling system from Ernakulam to Vallathol Nagar.

The automatic signalling project is being implemented by a joint venture of K-Rail-RVNL (Rail Vikas Nigam Limited, a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of Railways). Kavach is a system developed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) for the Indian Railways to avoid train collisions.

The protective system includes sensors, GPS system, and a communication system. This system detects the possibility of train collisions in time and automatically prevents them. Telecom towers and optical fibre cables will be installed throughout the stretch as part of the project, according to K-Rail officers.