New Delhi, Dec 27 (PTI) Having missed the second deadline of December 2025, Railways is now hopeful of operationalising the automatic train protection system, Kavach, on routes connecting the national capital with Mumbai and Howrah anytime in 2026 with steady progress and an aggressive approach, officials said.

Kavach is an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system, which is a highly technology-intensive system. It helps loco pilots in running trains within specified speed limits by the automatic application of brakes in case they fail to do so.

According to officials, 25 per cent work on these routes has been commissioned and is in ready-to-use condition. On the remaining 75 per cent of routes, major components have already been installed, they added.

"We are doing our level best to operationalise Kavach on the Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata route, hoping that it will be achieved in 2026," officials said.

The Railway Ministry on August 7, 2024, said that Kavach work would be completed on the said route by March 2025. It announced the extension of the deadline from March to December 2025 on February 1, 2025, in a budget document titled 'Railways estimates for Revised Estimates 2024-25 and Budget Estimates 2025-26'.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw provided an update on the progress of Kavach installation on December 17 in the Lok Sabha when the Congress MP Mallu Ravi asked the specific reasons for the revised deadline of December 2025 for the installation of 'Kavach' 4.0 on the high-density Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata routes and the percentage of this work completed as of November 1, 2025.

"After extensive and elaborate trials, Kavach Version 4.0 has been successfully commissioned on 738 Route km on Palwal-Mathura- Nagda section (633 Rkm) on Delhi-Mumbai route and Howrah-Bardhaman section (105 Rkm) on Delhi-Howrah route," Vaishnaw said.

He added, "Kavach implementation has been taken up in balance sections of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors." Updating the Lower House on the progress of Kavach components on the high-density routes, including Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah corridors, the minister said that Optical Fibre Cable has been laid on 7,129 km along with the installation of 800 telecom towers.

He added that other Kavach components, such as Station Kavach, have been installed on 860 stations, track-side equipment on 5,672 route km and Loco Kavach on 4,154 locomotives.

Experts said that with a significant increase in train operations over the years, loco pilots need technical aids to minimise the risk of human error.

The first field trials of Kavach on the passenger trains were started in February 2016, and in July 2020, it was adopted as the National ATP system.

The Ministry claimed that it conducted a trial of the Kavach 3.2 version on the 1,465 route on South Central Railway and used the experience to launch the 4.0 version on July 16, 2024.

"Kavach version 4.0 covers all the major features required for the diverse railway network. This is a significant milestone in safety for Indian Railways. Within a short period, IR has developed, tested and started deploying the Automatic Train Protection System," Vaishnaw said in its reply in the Lok Sabha.

He added that track-side Kavach implementation work has been taken up on 15,512 route km covering all Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), Golden Diagonal (GD), and High Density Network (HDN) and identified sections of Indian Railways.

He also stated that bids have been invited for equipping another 9,069 locomotives with Kavach version 4.0, as it has been progressively done in a phased manner in locomotives.

Highlighting the challenges, officials said that initially, there were only three companies which were approved to install Kavach on the Indian Railways network, but now many new companies are in the process of getting approval.

"The number of companies approved to install Kavach is now over five, and we are hoping that in 2026 it may cross 20. Indian Railways needs more than 50 original equipment manufacturers to expedite the installation process, as the broad-gauge network is 78,000 km long and will continue to expand with new areas being added to the rail network," officials said. PTI JP bj HIG HIG