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Indian Railways approved the deployment of Kavach Version 4.0 across 660 route kilometres of the Izzatnagar Division of North Eastern Railway on 12 August 2026, at a sanctioned cost of ₹295 crore.
The work falls under the umbrella project 'Provision of Kavach with communication backbone of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) on balance sections of Indian Railways'.
The rollout will cover 53 stations on the Kasganj–Izzatnagar, Izzatnagar–Kathgodam and Bhojipura–Tanakpur routes.
Kavach is an indigenous Automatic Train Protection system that prevents Signal Passed at Danger incidents and applies brakes automatically, and it allows trains to run at maximum permissible speed in dense fog.
Before this sanction, Kavach Version 4.0 had been commissioned on 1,452 route kilometres, including the Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah high-density corridors.
An ATP system continuously supervises how a train is being driven — its speed, its position and the state of the signal ahead — and intervenes when the driver does not. A SPAD occurs when a train runs past a stop signal without authority, historically one of the commonest precursors to collisions. Kavach places equipment on the locomotive, along the track and at stations, all linked by a radio network; if the loco pilot does not brake for a restrictive signal, the system applies the brakes itself. The same continuous supervision is what allows a train to keep to maximum permissible speed in dense fog, because the driver no longer depends on physically sighting the signal. Version 4.0 raises reliability on high-density and low-visibility routes, and uses an LTE backbone rather than dedicated trackside radio, which is why the umbrella work is named after it.
Simple Analogy: It works like the automatic emergency braking in a modern car: the driver stays in control, but if the car detects an obstacle and the driver does not react, the brakes come on regardless.
General Awareness > Indian Railways — zones, divisions, safety systems
General Awareness > Science, technology and current affairs
General Awareness > Infrastructure and current affairs
GS Paper 3 > Infrastructure — railways; indigenisation of technology
India's indigenous Automatic Train Protection system, developed by RDSO with domestic industry to SIL-4 standard.
An incident in which a train passes a stop signal without authority — a leading precursor to collisions.
The highest of the four safety integrity levels defined for railway signalling systems, denoting the lowest tolerable probability of dangerous failure.
A 4G mobile communication standard, used here as the radio backbone linking locomotive, trackside and station equipment.
The length of a rail route measured once, irrespective of how many parallel tracks run along it — distinct from track kilometre.