ACDs will help prevent train mishaps’

Even as the Railway Ministry sanctioned latest technology -- Anti Collision Device (ACD) - to prevent train accidents, it was not being used despite number of train accidents occurring in various parts in the country. If anti-Collision device had been installed in the trains, the tragedy that struck Goa Sampark Express and Mewar Express near Mathura, could have been averted, feels Rajaram Bojji, who invented the ACD. The proposal to install ACD in trains to prevent train accidents has been there for the last 10 years. The officials conducted a trial in Jalandhar and Amritsar sections but the equipment has not been installed till date. The ACD was invented by Rajaram Bojji, a Hyderabad-based retired railway officer when he was working as a Managing Director, Konkan Railways in 1999. When the recent train accident occurred near Mathura and claimed the lives of as many as 20 children, Rajaram, wrote a letter to the Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee to install ACD systems in trains to prevent recurrence of such incidents. When Express met the ACD inventor at his residence-- Durgabhai Desmukh Colony in Hyderabad, he told about the importance of ACD and how it will help prevent train accidents. The ACD is a collision prevention system usually installed in the locomotive as well as in the guards couch. It is connected with the global positioning system (GPS) and acts as watchdog, constantly overlooking other trainbound ACDs and if they happen to find themselves on the same track and coming closer to each other, they automatically stop, thereby preventing head-on and rear end collisions. ``I worked for 90 days on the software system with the assistance of Hyderabad- based Kernex hardware and Information Technology (IT) company. The installation of ACDs are cheaper and they will be available for Rs 1 lakh,’’ Rajaram said. The ACDs can sense even a small rod on the railway tracks from a distance of 2 km, he said. ``When ACD was invented by me and I got the patent rights, a number of foreign Governments approached me to buy the latest technology. I was reluctant to sell it as I am very eager to implement it in the Indian railways to prevent accidents,’’ he said. By Mouli Mareedu