Rescue work underway after a collision between the Kanchanjunga Express and a goods train, near Rangapani railway station, on June 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The accident involving the Sealdah Kanchanjunga Express on June 17, which claimed 10 lives, has brought to the fore once again the delay in installing Kavach, an indigenously developed automatic train protection (ATP) system, across the country’s rail network.
Experts, including former Railway Minister and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, raised questions about the delay in the implementation of the system. She said safety of passengers is no longer a priority of the Railways. Kavach aids the loco pilot in trains running within specified speed limits by automatic application of brakes in case the pilot fails to do so.
On Monday, a goods train hit the Kanchanjunga Express between Rangapani and Chatterhat in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district, derailing four coaches of the passenger train and five wagons of the goods train. At a press conference hours after the accident, Railway Board chairperson Jaya Varma Sinha said ‘prima facie’ the accident was due to a ‘human error’. To reduce this, Kavach is being planned by the Ministry on mission mode, she said.
Asked about the implementation of the system in West Bengal and the Northeast, the chairperson said it was in the planning stage. She said installation of Kavach along the Howrah-Delhi route will be completed this year and in the Northeast Frontier Railway section in the next phase.
Last December, responding to a question in the Lok Sabha, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had said that Kavach had been deployed on 1,465 km and in 139 locomotives, including Electric Multiple Unit rakes, in South Central Railway.
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“Presently, Kavach tenders have been awarded for Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah corridors (approximately 3,000 km) and work is in progress on these routes,” the Minister had said in response to a question by MPs Benny Behanan and Kumbakudi Sudhakaran.
The Indian Railways has taken up preparatory work, including survey, detailed project report and preparation of a detailed estimate on another 6,000 km, the Minister had said.
The first field trials of Kavach began in February 2016 and the system was adopted as a national ATP system in July 2020. In his reply, the Minister had added that there are only three Indian original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of Kavach and efforts were being made to develop more OEMs to enhance the capacity to scale up the implementation. The Railway Board chairperson also stressed on the need by OEMs to augment their production capacity.
Adhir Sharma, former DGP and IGP of West Bengal Railway Police, said Kavach is usually installed in passenger trains. But on Monday, a goods train hit the express train on the same track.
Mr. Sharma said not only did technology fail with the automatic signalling system not working, monitoring of the two trains to stop a collision was absent. He said there was no communication as the loco pilot of the goods train and the guard of the express train were not told about the location of their trains.
“There are several unanswered questions such as why the goods train driver picked up speed and why a long-distance train like the Kanchanjunga Express was standing at Rangapani station,” he said.