While the Andhra Pradesh government claimed that foolproof measures were implemented for smooth conduct of the 12-day event, the incident has brought to the fore the lack of preparedness on the part of officials in dealing with the crowd. The administration in Rajahmundry roped in various departments to make arrangements, but apparently failed to assess the number of people visiting the ghats on the first day.
Former Vice-Chairman of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Marri Shashidhar Reddy said regulation of the crowd was more crucial in preventing such incidents and perhaps the officials failed to do it in Rajahmundry.
A report prepared by the NDMA on managing crowds at events of mass gathering in 2014 said the basic need for an event of this magnitude was to understand the number of visitors. Assessment should be done on crowd management strategy and arrangements required during the arrival and departure.
The guiding principle for crowd control should be managing demand and supply gap through controlling inflow and outflow, besides regulation at the venue.