Railways envisages Rs 55k investment plan for Modernization of Signalling and Telecom

In another move to give a boost to the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ Mission, Government has approved the allotment of a 5 MHz Spectrum in 700 MHz frequency band to Indian Railways for public safety and security services at stations and in trains.

New Delhi: In an aim to enhance safety and security, Indian Railways has envisaged an investment plan of more than Rs 55,000 crore for the Modernization of Signalling and Telecom. Expansion of railway network capacity through signalling modernisation will help Railways to do away with the need to lay new tracks by acquiring land.

"So far IR was dependent on foreign technology for Automatic Train Protection systems. IR with Indian firms has now successfully developed indigenous cost-effective technology for ATP – called Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). It has been decided to adopt TCAS as the National ATP of India under the ‘AtmaNirbhar Bharat’ Mission," said Railway Board Member Infrastructure Sanjeev Mittal while addressing a virtual press conference.

TCAS has been approved for 37300 RKm covering important routes in the 1st phase. The roll-out of TCAS will eliminate train collision due to human error and enhance the speed potential of IR thereby reducing travel time. He further added, "There is a technical committee that will select the best features globally that can be adopted for TCAS. Locomotive equipment and track equipment costs will be cheaper than ETCS."

In another move to give a boost to the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ Mission, Government has approved the allotment of a 5 MHz Spectrum in 700 MHz frequency band to Indian Railways for public safety and security services at stations and in trains. With this spectrum, Indian Railways has envisaged providing Long Term Evolution (LTE) based Mobile Train Radio Communication on its route. The estimated investment in the project is more than Rs. 25,000 Crore which would be completed in the next 5 years.

Aruna Singh, Additional Member-Telecom, Railway Board, informed that the exact amount of spectrum fee will depend on the number of towers Railways set up. The decision will be taken by the Department of Telecommunication. The move will help the Indian Railways in improving safety and increasing the line capacity to accommodate more trains using the existing infrastructure. The modern rail network will result in reduced transportation cost and higher efficiency.

Indian Railways has planned roll-out of automatic signalling on around 15000 Rkm of high density and freight intensive routes. Till April 30, 2021, the Automatic Block Signaling has been provided on 3447 Route km. With the implementation of automatic signalling, an increase in capacity will accrue resulting in more train services becoming possible.

Railways has also adopted a policy decision to provide Electronic Interlocking (EI) under which 1550 EIs are planned to be provided in the next 3 years. So far, 2221 stations have been provided with Electronic Interlocking up to April 30, 2021, covering 34% of Indian Railways.