NEW DELHI: Now station directors will control the sale of tickets as per station capacity and available trains, a high-level meeting chaired by railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw decided on Friday. Besides this, there will be permanent waiting areas outside 60 busy stations and wider foot-over bridges, moves that will help in better crowd management.
Station directors, who are the overall in-charge of their stations, will be financially empowered to take on-the-spot decisions to improve facilities.
The decisions come barely weeks after a stampede at the New Delhi station claimed 18 lives. Though a probe into the incident is underway, one of the probable reasons was the sale of a high number of tickets from its counters.
In an official statement, the railway ministry said the high-level committee held detailed deliberations on crowd control at stations, particularly at 60 locations where footfall is exceptionally high during certain festive periods. It added that permanent outside waiting areas will be created at these stations which “periodically face heavy crowd”. Pilot projects have been started at New Delhi, Anand Vihar, Varanasi, Ayodhya and Patna stations.
“With this arrangement in place, sudden crowding will be contained within the waiting area. Passengers will be allowed to go to platforms only when trains arrive there. This will decongest stations,” a ministry spokesperson said.
As per the decisions, there will be complete access control at these 60 stations. While passengers with confirmed tickets will be given direct access to platforms, those without a ticket or with a waiting list ticket will have to be in the waiting area. All unauthorised entry points will also be sealed.
Another major decision was to construct wider foot-over bridges (FOB). Two new designs — for 12-metre-wide (40 feet) and six-metre-wide (20 feet) standard FOBs — have been developed. These wide bridges with ramps were effective in crowd management during the Maha Kumbh.
Moreover, war rooms will be developed at large stations, and officers of all departments will work in the room if there is a surge in people at the stations. The ministry has also decided to use communication equipment such as walkie-talkies, announcement systems, and calling systems at stations that face crowding. “A newly designed ID card for staffers and service persons, a new uniform that will make staffers easily identifiable in a crisis situation, and appointment of a senior officer as station director at major stations were the other measures that would be implemented,” the ministry said.
