‘Gajraj Suraksha’: Railway develops system to prevent trains from colliding with elephants

NEW DELHI: “In a first”, through cutting-edge indigenous technology, the Indian Railways has successfully developed a system, preliminarily called as ‘Gajraj Suraksha (Elephant safety) system’ to prevent elephant–train collision in the forest areas. The technology, now proved to be successful after rounds of trials in the last one year as a pilot project, will prove to be extremely helpful in mitigating elephant collisions with the locomotives of trains in the forest areas of many states.

The Gajaraj Safety (GS) technology was first put on the test as a pilot project along the 1,500 km of rail tracks stretch in Assam which witnesses frequent cases of elephants and tuskers deaths as they hit the locomotives of trains passing through the forest areas having population of wild jumbos and tuskers.

Sharing this here on Wednesday, Union Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the railways is committed to protecting elephants and other wildlife animals boosting the wildlife ecosystem in the country while providing train services through many forest stretches.

“The technology, initially being called ‘Gajaraj Suraksha’, is basically pressure-wave based technology which alerts the loco pilots whenever it detects the movements of elephants in herds or as a single about 200 meters away from them to the railway tracks. As soon as the loco pilots of trains passing through the forest areas receive the alerts, they slow down the speed of train across the elephant vulnerable areas to save them while crossing the railway lines”, the minister said.

Dwelling upon this unique system being implemented in the Indian Railways, the minister said the Gajraj-Suraksha (GS) system will be implemented across 700 km of railway tracks in elephant-prone areas in next few months, followed by other areas on priority basis.“The railway will incur an expenditure of around Rs 181 crore on it which is bound to prove a boon for saving the elephants from coming under wheels of trains,” the minister added.