Railways signalling systems to be modernized with advanced technological features: Trivedi

New Delhi, Mar 14 (ANI): Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi, who presented the Railway Budget proposals for 2012-13 in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, said the signalling system on the railways will be modernized with the provisioning of advanced technological features.

Trivedi said: "Signalling system would include panel/route relay interlocking covering 700 more stations by 2014 thereby completing 5500 out of the required 6200 stations; Interlocking of over 1500 level crossing gates in addition to the 10000 already interlocked, leaving a balance of 250; complete track circuiting at 1250 out of 6200 identified stations, installation of axle counters at 3000 more stations and provision of isolation at the remaining 625 stations."

"One of the significant advancement would be the provisioning of Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS), which ensures automatic application of brakes whenever a driver over-shoots a signal at danger, thereby eliminating chances of collision of trains," Trivedi added.

He said the railway is taking necessary action to ensure that TPWS technology is suitably adapted to Indian conditions.

"Besides the efforts to develop TCAS (Train Collision Avoidance System) integrating features of different technologies will be continued by RDSO. These would also be a pre-requisite to increase speed of passenger trains to 160 kmph," he added.

The total cost of various signalling and telecom works has been estimated to be Rs. 39,110 crore in the next five years.

Towards this end, the Ministry proposes to provide Rs. 2,002 crore in 2012-13, which is more than double the allocation of the current year and the highest ever. (ANI)