Indian Railways has sanctioned projects valued at approximately Rs 1,236 crore to enhance its communication infrastructure and extend the Kavach automatic train protection system across several zones, the Ministry of Railways announced.
The approvals include three proposals: two focusing on optical fibre and ground wire networks for Central and Western Railways, and one for deploying Kavach on high-usage routes of Southern Railway.
For Central Railway, a Rs 623.63 crore investment will build a dual-path communication system across all five divisions-Solapur, Nagpur, Pune, Bhusawal, and Mumbai. This involves installing a special composite overhead wire (OPGW with 96 fibres) along existing 25 KV electric traction lines over 2,250.68 route kilometres in four divisions, serving both as an earth protection wire and communication carrier. Since the wire uses existing traction towers, no new civil works are required. The project cost is Rs 238.9363 crore.
Additionally, underground optical fibre cables (2×48 fibre) will be laid on one side of tracks covering 2,673.21 route kilometres across all five divisions. Together with the OPGW on the opposite side, this creates two independent fibre paths per route, enhancing network resilience. This component costs Rs 384.6887 crore. Extra fibre capacity will be leased as dark fibre to generate revenue for Indian Railways.
The Kavach safety system, designed to prevent collisions by Applying brakes automatically if trains are on a collision path or pass signals at danger, will be extended over 548 kilometres in Southern Railway at a cost of Rs 310.18 crore.
Version 4.0 of Kavach will be deployed along two sections: Jolarpettai-Erode (180 route kilometres, Salem Division) and Chennai Beach-Tambaram-Chengalpattu (60 kilometres, Chennai Division), accompanied by new optical fibre cabling, costing Rs 158.74 crore.
It will also be installed on Shoranur-Mangalore (308 kilometres, Palakkad Division) with new 4×48 fibre OFC cabling, costing Rs 151.44 crore. These efforts are part of Southern Railway’s broader Rs 2,950 crore sub-umbrella project.
Western Railway has approved Rs 302.2589 crore to complete its fibre optic backbone in Gujarat, covering 1,653 kilometres-1,064 kilometres in Rajkot Division and 589 kilometres in Bhavnagar Division. This will fill existing gaps in the communication network critical for Kavach and LTE-based train control systems, facilitating timely Kavach implementation. These works form part of Western Railway’s Rs 2,800 crore sub-umbrella project.