Railway Minister Initiates Trial For Crowd Control Measures At New Delhi Station

The Railways conducted a trial for crowd control measures on Saturday at New Delhi Railway Station by restricting movements of unreserved passengers to a single platform and scheduling all Maha Kumbh special trains from there as and when demand arose.

According to the Railway Ministry, the whole exercise was carried out on the suggestions and under the constant monitoring of Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw who was assisted by Railway Board Chairman and CEO Satish Kumar and other senior officials. All of them kept a close watch on the trial from the War Room of the Rail Bhawan in New Delhi.

Mr Vaishnaw told PTI that the experiment proved successful as it prevented overcrowding of other platforms and ensured seamless transfer of devotees to trains and their onward journey.

"I monitored the whole experiment personally with the Chairman of the Railway Board from the War Room at the Rail Bhawan in New Delhi. On the one hand, while both reserved and unreserved passengers who travelled to destinations other than Prayagraj had a comfortable and smooth experience of boarding and de-boarding at their respective platforms, on the other hand, devotees too had a hassle-free, comfortable and safer journey to Kumbh Mela from their designated platform number 16," Mr Vaishnaw said.

"Senior officials of the Northern Railway were present at the New Delhi station to assess the ground situation and the Railway Board remained in touch with them as well. Now, the experience will help us in better planning of the running of special trains for all such occasions in future," the minister added.

Officials said the Railway Ministry chose Saturday to conduct the trial as a stampede had broken out between 8 to 9 pm the same day last week, killing 18 passengers and injuring many.

Soon after the stampede, a temporary passenger holding area was constructed in the station area and it was decided that all special trains for Prayagraj would depart from Platform No. 16, the first platform from one side of the station.

"On Saturday, between 2.30 pm and 11.30 pm, we monitored unreserved ticket sales for every half-an-hour. We observed that 969 tickets were sold between 2.30 pm and 3 pm.

"This number fell to 466 in the next 30 minutes and kept fluctuating between 400 and 1,100 by 7 pm. However, after that, it started increasing and between 7 and 7.30 pm, 1,445 tickets were sold. The maximum was 1,822 tickets between 8.30 pm and 9 pm," Himanshu Upadhyay, CPRO, Northern Railway, told PTI.

"While we monitored the unreserved ticket sales, we also kept scheduling trains as and when the number of unreserved passengers reached around 2,500. They were asked to wait in the holding area and allowed to enter platform number 16 from only one gate. They were not allowed to enter any other platforms," he said.

According to the officials, the Railways operated five unreserved (special) trains to Prayagraj from the New Delhi station between 2.30 pm and 11.30 pm, catering to the surge in crowds for the weekend.

"The Indian Railways is making constant efforts to provide convenient travel options for pilgrims visiting the Maha Kumbh," Mr Upadhyay said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)