Neeraj Kaushal’s Column – Technology or Planning Can Save Us From Stampedes | Neeraj Kaushal’s column: Technology or planning can save us from flesh

Neeraj Kaushal, Professor at Columbia University

India is becoming a stampede-stampede of the world. There is a stampede everywhere. Religious fairs, in sports events, at railway stations, political rallies and even in schools. Experts say that stampeles are happening because the majority of India’s population is illiterate towards civil rights.

But they are completely wrong. The stamped are not illiterate, but due to insufficient and poor mob management. Anyway, on one side there is untouchability in the country, on the other hand accidents from the fifths are increasing.

The huge crowd gathering at religious fairs and sports events is an indication that the emerging middle class of India wants to celebrate its prosperity. Indians are of very religious tendency and religious people want to go on pilgrimage.

Since their prosperity has increased, they also have resources to fulfill their desires. There is a belief about auspicious occasions that there is a lot of virtue in them. Therefore, a large number of people are flocking on religious fairs and auspicious occasions. Due to lack of illiteracy and increase in prosperity, you should assume that in the coming days it will increase and increase.

During the IPL celebration in June, 11 people died of a stampede in Bengaluru. Three people were killed in Puri’s Rath Yatra. In February, 18 lives went to Delhi railway station. At least 30 people died during Mahakumbh in Prayagraj and before that in January, six people were killed in Tirupati’s stampede.

Last year too, 121 people died and 150 had to be hospitalized after a stampede at a religious program in Hathras. In all these cases, either the mob management was very poor or was completely lacking.

The crowd management is crooked kheer and it is becoming more difficult with increasing urbanization. The good thing is that we can manage it by planning a good plan with better ability of instant communication and real time data of crowd movements.

The Fire Safety Engineering Group of the University of Greenwich has tried to understand how the crowd runs under different circumstances using behavioral experiments and mathematical models. They found that the movement of a congestion of more than four people per meter is risky.

The person running in such a crowd does not see what is happening around him. He is able to see only a few people running around him. He has no idea that there is a pressure of crowds all around. Yes, it is possible to monitor the severity of the crowd through CTC cameras and at real time security personnel and workers can be informed about the risky areas.

Apart from monitoring real time data, we have to make rules and regulations of entering religious places like Prayagraj, Tirupati, Puri, Varanasi, Badrinath, Dwarka. In these cities, the local administration should learn from Venice, where fees are charged from the visiting daily visitors. The fee is also increased to reduce congestion during religious fairs.

In India, politicians will hesitate to levy such a fee, because no one would want to blame the fault of imposing a fee on entry into God’s house. But if they do so, the revenue received from it can be spent on improving the basic facilities getting worse in religious places. Devotees will also appreciate it. Registration can be made mandatory a week before the pilgrimage, so that adequate resources can be set up for the management of the people coming.

There is no solution to this problem. The crowd management of the railway station varies from school and sports events. During the morning and evening aarti in Vaishno Devi and Tirupati temples, the technique of mobilization is different from religious visits and political rallies. The important thing is that we have to increase our ability to manage a huge crowd. Because due to urbanization and increasing prosperity, the crowd will increase further.

The crowd management is crooked kheer and it is becoming more difficult with increasing urbanization. But with the ability of instant communication and real time data of crowd movements, we can manage it by planning well. (These are the writer’s own views)