Indian Railways to lay 1,929 km optical fibre cable in Gujarat, MP under Rs 398 crore project
New Delhi: The government has sanctioned a Rs 398.36 crore project to lay optical fibre cable across 1,929 route kilometres in the Ahmedabad and Ratlam divisions of Western Railway, strengthening the communication backbone needed for the rollout of its automatic train protection system Kavach, the Ministry of Railways said on Saturday.
According to the government, the project involves laying 2×48 fibre optical fibre cable across 1,456 route kilometres in Ahmedabad division and 473 route kilometres in Ratlam division.
The work has been approved under a broader Rs 27,693 crore umbrella project for provision of Kavach with Long Term Evolution-based communication backbone across Indian Railways under the Works Programme 2024-25.
Moreover, a sub-umbrella work specific to Western Railway has been sanctioned at Rs 2,800 crore, under which this project has been taken up.
The upgraded communication infrastructure will support modern signalling systems, enable seamless data transmission, and enhance the capacity and reliability of railway operations across the two divisions.
Kavach is Indian Railways’ indigenously developed automatic train protection system designed to prevent collisions by automatically applying brakes when a signal is missed or two trains are on a collision course.
The government has been accelerating its rollout across the network following a series of train accidents in recent years.
In addition, the government had sanctioned over Rs 34,000 crore in the last three years for passenger amenities such as expenditure on crowd management at stations to ensure smooth travel.
During 2023-24, worth Rs 9,392 crore was allocated for enhancing passenger amenities, while another Rs 12,884 crore was earmarked during 2024-25 and as much as Rs 12,018 crore in 2025-26, according to Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
The minister in the Parliament session stated that 23 permanent holding areas across Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and UP out of the total 76 crowded stations in the country are currently under development.