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UPSC Prelims 2025, Question 82

The concept being tested: Kavach automatic train protection system.

Consider the following statements: I. Indian Railways have prepared a National Rail Plan (NRP) to create a 'future ready' railway system by 2028. II. 'Kavach' is an Automatic Train Protection system developed in collaboration with Germany. III. 'Kavach' system consists of RFID tags fitted on track in station section. Which of the statements given above are not correct?

Options

  1. AI and II onlyCorrect answer
  2. BII and III only
  3. CI and III only
  4. DI, II and III

The answer: I and II only

Kavach is India's indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection system, engineered by the Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO) with Indian industry partners — it was never built in collaboration with Germany, so statement II is wrong. Separately, the National Rail Plan, released in December 2020, targets 2030 for a 'future ready' railway system, not 2028, so statement I is wrong too. Statement III, however, accurately describes Kavach's architecture: RFID tags are fitted along the track in the station section, feeding location data to onboard and trackside units that enforce speed restrictions and automatic braking to prevent signal-passing-at-danger collisions. Since only statements I and II are factually wrong while statement III holds up, the option that correctly isolates the incorrect pair is 'I and II only'.

What UPSC was testing

The question tests whether aspirants can separate a genuinely accurate technical detail of Kavach — its trackside RFID architecture — from two plausible-sounding but false claims about its foreign origin and the National Rail Plan's target year; the 'not correct' phrasing punishes anyone who assumes all three statements share the same fate.

How often this comes up

This concept has appeared 4 times in UPSC Prelims General Studies Paper I between 2015 and 2025 — in 2018, 2020 and 2025.

The option-by-option autopsy for this question — why each of the other three is wrong, and which neighbouring concept each one was built from — is in the app.

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