A day after the stampede at New Delhi railway station, in which 18 persons are reported to have died, the Eastern Railway took measures to enhance arrangements for security and crowd management at various stations under its limits.

With a huge demand during the ongoing Mahakumbh, crowd surveillance and crowd management are one of the top priorities for the railway authorities. Given the situation in Eastern Railway, additional RPF personnel have been deployed at platforms, foot-over bridges and stations to manage crowd. Commercial and other staff of Eastern Railway have also been instructed to manage the crowd and providing assistance to the passengers in need. Trains are being escorted by RPF staff, with additional focus on mail, express, and special trains while Meri Saheli and Matangini teams are kept on high alert, for assisting women passengers in ladies’ compartments. Additionally, surveillance has been intensified, with officers supervising trained personnel handling CCTV systems.

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Following the incident at New Delhi, the railway authorities are said to have given few instructions to cater to the mammoth crowds of passengers during peak demand periods. Various railway zones and divisions have been instructed to make arrangements for making dedicated channels for passengers, particularly unreserved class. The zones have also been asked to ensure medical facilities at terminal stations like Howrah and Sealdah along with additional battery operated cars, wheelchairs, stretchers at Sealdah and Kolkata station to reign, in case of emergency. For maximising the circulating areas at key stations, holding areas are to be assessed.

To cater to the crowd of passengers, the divisional railway managers of various divisions flung into action to take a note of the situation at key stations. With this background, the DRM of Sealdah, Deepak Nigam, also inspected Sealdah station today to assess the arrangement for coping up with the surge of pilgrims. The DRM has decided to have dedicated platforms for Kumbh bound trains and display platform occupancy properly on display boards. Mr Nigam has instructed to take abundant precautions in issuing general/unreserved tickets in order to avert any untoward incidents. “There will be no deviation or change in platform number for mail/express trains, once it has been declared in the public address system. Station manager will ensure availability of staff strength to facilitate pilgrims,” informed a senior official of the division.

“Unreserved ticket sale details would be monitored periodically by the division at highest level, to assess sudden surge in unreserved ticket selling and take preventive action to avoid any stampede like situation,” he added.