Pushkaram stampede exposes failure of crowd management

Crowds had started building up since Monday midnight at Pushkar Ghat No.1 where Chief Minister took holy dip and performed puja

July 15, 2015 03:32 am | Updated November 16, 2021 05:23 pm IST - HYDERABAD:

Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh : 14/07/2015: Devotees throng pushkar ghat to take a dip in river Godavari on the first day of Maha Pushkaram at Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, July 14, 2015. --- Photo: K.R. Deepak

Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh : 14/07/2015: Devotees throng pushkar ghat to take a dip in river Godavari on the first day of Maha Pushkaram at Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, July 14, 2015. --- Photo: K.R. Deepak

The stampede at the bathing ghats on the very first day of the Godavari Maha Pushkaram, which claimed the lives of at least 27 people on Tuesday, exposed the utter failure of the crowd management systems put in place for the event billed as a once-in-144-years spectacle.

Enormous planning had gone into the event for months, and in the last few weeks, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu had been reviewing the arrangements on a daily basis. “Every aspect was covered including construction of enough ghats and amenities for pilgrims. Officers from the Marri Chenna Reddy Human Resource Development Institute were deputed to the Godavari districts to train officers in crowd management. It was a failure to manage the crowd and disperse it to various ghats by the local police and administration that singularly contributed to the tragedy,” said a senior official who took part in several video conferences on the Pushkaram arrangements.

Highly placed officers admitted to The Hindu that there were clear lapses in crowd management. The crowds had started building up since midnight at Pushkar Ghat No.1 where the Chief Minister took a holy dip and performed a puja. While he did so, the crowd was held back for about an hour and a half. “Had the Chief Minister left immediately after taking a dip or had the officers there alerted him about the huge crowd buildup and taken him to the VIP ghat, the stampede might have been averted,” an official said.

The moment Mr. Naidu left Pushkar Ghat No.1 and police personnel were seeing off the VIPs, the gates were opened and the crowd surged towards the ghat, resulting in a stampede. By the time anyone could react, a stampede had been triggered, he noted. The local police should simply have dispersed the crowd to different ghats, he said.

Following the tragedy, questions are being raised about the merits of mega-marketing a spiritual event. The pressure on local administration increased manifold with the Chief Minister and several ministers camping at Rajahmundry regularly. “Is that kind of micro management required at the local level? The administration had to devote more time for VIPs rather than focusing on crowd management,” several officers said.

A government spokesperson pointed out that the previous Pushkaram in 2003, when Mr.Chandrababu Naidu was at the helm, went off without an incident. At that time there was no pressure of VIPs on the district administration and local officers could focus on arrangements for smooth movement of pilgrims.

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