NDA (II) 2023 General Ability Test · Question 146 of 146

Correct — B, 3 only. Statement 3 is the one that survives: Kavach carries Safety Integrity Level 4 certification, obtained in 2019 for compliance with the European CENELEC standards, and SIL-4 is the highest of the four levels those standards define. Statement 1 fails on the partner. Kavach was developed indigenously by the Research Design and Standards Organisation working with three Indian firms — Medha Servo Drives, Kernex Microsystems and HBL Power Systems — and not with any Japanese institute; the whole selling point of the system is that it is an Indian alternative to imported train protection. Statement 2 fails on the zone. The trials and the well-known live demonstration were run on the South Central Railway, the demonstration of 4 March 2022 taking place between Gullaguda and Chitgidda stations in the Secunderabad Division, not on the Southern Railway.

• (a)1 only — This keeps the one statement with a foreign partner grafted onto it and drops the certification, which is the accurate claim. Kavach's design partners were Indian industry, not Japan's railway research institute.
• (c)1 and 2 only — Both of these statements carry a planted substitution — a Japanese collaborator for Indian firms, and Southern Railway for South Central Railway. Two wrong statements cannot make a right answer.
• (d)1, 2 and 3 — The all-three option is tempting because each statement sounds administratively plausible. Only the safety-integrity claim is true; the development partner and the trial zone have both been altered.

An automatic train protection system watches over the driver. If a train passes a signal at danger or exceeds the permitted speed, the system applies the brakes itself, and if two trains equipped with it approach each other on the same line it can stop both. Kavach is the Indian implementation, developed for Indian Railways and designed to work with the existing signalling by exchanging information between trackside equipment, locomotives and stations. Because a failure of such a system can kill, it is built and certified against safety-integrity standards, the highest of which is SIL-4.

Two of the three statements here are altered by a single substitution, which is the standard way an examiner turns a press release into a question. The defence against it is to keep one anchoring detail for each big fact — for Kavach, remember that the system is indigenous and that its industry partners are Indian, and remember Secunderabad, because the demonstration that put Kavach on every front page was on the South Central Railway. Southern Railway and South Central Railway differ by one word, which is exactly the kind of gap examiners exploit. As of the September 2023 exam Kavach was in the middle of a slow rollout across trunk routes rather than in universal service, and it has continued to be extended since.

• Kavach was indigenously developed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation in collaboration with Medha Servo Drives, Kernex Microsystems and HBL Power Systems.
• It received Safety Integrity Level 4 certification in 2019, for compliance with the CENELEC and EN standards.
• The live demonstration of 4 March 2022 was conducted between Gullaguda and Chitgidda stations in the Secunderabad Division, on the South Central Railway.
• An automatic train protection system applies the brakes on its own when a signal is passed at danger or a speed limit is exceeded.

• Reading Southern Railway for South Central Railway; the two zones are distinct and the trials were on the second.
• Assuming an advanced Indian system must have a foreign technology partner.
• Treating SIL-4 as a middling grade; it is the highest level in the standard.

Asked as a three-statement item in which two statements have had one proper noun each quietly swapped.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Kavach, the Indian automatic train protection system, was developed by

  • (a)the Research Design and Standards Organisation with Indian industry partners
  • (b)the Defence Research and Development Organisation with a French firm
  • (c)the Indian Space Research Organisation
  • (d)the Central Railway workshops at Parel

  Answer(a) the Research Design and Standards Organisation with Indian industry partners — Medha Servo Drives, Kernex Microsystems and HBL Power Systems.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Safety Integrity Level 4, the grade certified for Kavach, is

  • (a)the lowest of four levels
  • (b)the highest of four levels
  • (c)a measure of energy efficiency
  • (d)a rating of passenger comfort

  Answer(b) the highest of four levels — the top safety integrity level defined in the CENELEC standards for safety-critical systems.