Kavach could not have averted Odisha train tragedy, railway officials claim

Amid debate that the automatic train protection system "Kavach” could prevent the railway accident at Odisha's Balasore," the top railway official has said that the anti-collision technology would not have prevented such an accident.

Even with the anti-collision technology Kavach, this accident could not have been averted due to the speed of the Coromandel Express and its distance from the stationary goods train, Jaya Verma Sinha, Railway Board Member (Operations and Business Development), has said.

"Had Kavach been here it could have been on the locomotive and on the track. The Kavach would have had only 100 meters to respond with the train at the speed of close to 130 kmph. For a train moving at 130 kmph, it needs 600 meters of distance for a break. The system would not have got an input to stop and only after it had hit an obstruction at 100 kmph would the Kavach have responded. If a boulder falls suddenly, then Kavach can't help," she said.

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"I don't think there is any technology in the world that can prevent such an accident. It is like a huge stone falling in front of the train and nothing can be done about it,"she said.

Kavach is the indigenous Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System that the Railway Ministry developed in 2022 in collaboration with three Indian vendors, by the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO). Kavach alerts when a loco pilot jumps a signal (Signal Passed at Danger -- SPAD), which is the leading cause of train collisions.

Insisting that the railways is taking steps to install Kavach on its routes, Verma Sinha said that the expansion of Kavach system on all routes will take time and that it is a very expensive system and its proliferation has been approved at a high budget.

Earlier, railway officials had said that Kavach was not installed on the route where accidents involving Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express, Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express and a goods train occurred on Friday near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore in Odisha.

Opposition parties have attacked the government alleging that it is compromising safety by not installing anti-collision devices to prevent train accidents.