Indian Railways has planned following actions to handle heavy rush of passengers at stations over the Indian Railways: -

1. Creation of Permanent holding areas at 73 identified stations:

• During the festival season of 2024, holding areas were created outside stations. These waiting areas were able to hold large crowds at Surat, Udhna, Patna and New Delhi. Passengers were allowed to enter only when the train came to the platform.
• Similar arrangements were made during Mahakumbh at nine stations of Prayag area.
• Based on the experience of these stations, it has been decided to create permanent waiting areas outside stations at 73 stations across the country, which periodically faces heavy crowds. Crowd build up will be controlled within the waiting area. Passengers will be allowed to go to platforms only when the trains arrive at the platform. This will decongest the platforms.
• Pilot projects have started at New Delhi, Anand Vihar, Varanasi, Ayodhya, and Ghaziabad stations.

2. Access control:

• Complete access control will be initiated at the 73 identified stations.
• Passengers with confirmed reserve tickets will be given direct access to the platforms.
• Passengers without a ticket or with a waiting list ticket will wait in the outside waiting area.
• All unauthorised entry points will be sealed.

3. Wider Foot-over-bridges (FOB):

• Two new designs of 12 metre wide (40 feet) and 6 metre wide (20 feet) standard FOB have been developed. These wide FOBs with ramps were very effective in crowd management during Mahakumbh. These new standard wide FOBs will be installed in all the stations.

4. Cameras:

• Cameras helped crowd management in a big way during Mahakumbh. CCTV cameras at Railway stations and adjoining areas will aid close monitoring and management of crowd at railway stations.

5. War rooms:

• War rooms at large stations will be developed. Officers of all departments will work in the war room during crowd situations.

6. New generation communication equipment:

• Latest design digital communication equipment like walkie-talkies, announcement systems, calling systems will be installed on all heavy crowd stations.

7. New design ID card:

• All staff and service persons will be given a new design ID card so that only authorised persons can enter the station.

8. New design uniform for staff:

• All staff members will be given new design uniforms so that they can be easily identified during a crisis situation.

9. Upgradation of Station Director post:

• All major stations will have a senior officer as Station Director. All other departments will report to the Station Director.
• Station Director will get financial empowerment so that he can take on-the-spot decisions for improving the station.

10. Sale of tickets as per capacity:

• Station Director will be empowered to control the sale of tickets as per capacity of the station and the available trains.

Further, the following steps are being taken in coordination with other stakeholders to control the rush at stations:-

• Coordination with GRP/State Police and concerned railway departments are made for ensuring crowd management.
• Government Railway Police (GRP) & Railway Protection Force (RPF) staff are deployed at sensitive locations to regulate crowd smoothly during the heavy rush period and render real time assistance to passengers.

• GRP & RPF staff are deployed at foot-over bridges to regulate crowd smoothly in order to avoid stampede like situation during the heavy rush period and render real time assistance to passengers.
• Intelligence units (Crime Intelligence Branch (CIB)/Special Intelligence Branch (SIB)) and plain cloth staff is deployed for collection of information about rush and accordingly arrangements were made associating GRP/Police.

This information was provided by the Union Minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

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Dharmendra Tewari/ Dr. Nayan Solanki/ Ritu Raj