In spite of being preventable, stampedes due to improper crowd control mechanisms continue to claim lives in India. Discuss the underlying causes of such disasters. What institutional and technological measures can be taken for efficient crowd management?

India has recently seen 3 major stampede incident in past 1 year which took more than 100 lives

1. Mahakumbh Stampede
2. Bengluru → RCB Stampede
3. New Delhi Railway Stampede

Underlying causes

1. poor planning and coordination of programme → Bengluru case

2. lack of civic sense among people → rush to be first during Mahakumbh.

3. Lack of Mitigation efforts → NDLS Stampede

4. Too much population pressure → 60 crore + People in Mahakumbh

5. Behavioural Issue → Not following line & instruction → Herd mentality of people

6. Structural Issue → Poorly planned infrastructure → degraded quality eg Bridge damaged during [hathras] stampede

7. Fanaticism and Euphoria among people eg Hathras Stampede

8. Administrative Apathy

Measures

(A) Institutional (i) Structural measures eg Z shaped line for crowd control (Ujjain) (ii) Infrastructural upgrade (iii) Clear SOPs for administration

(iv) Early warning indicators for crowd density analysis

(v) Pre-planning and crowd management technique

(vi) Civic education → to children and adult.

B Technological

(vii) Predictive Analysis eg use of AI for simulation

(viii) use of Drones, Sensors, cameras for crowd management

(ix) Technological Asserment of infrastructure capacity

(x) Unified command and control centre for crowd management

Clear SOPs and administrative guidelines are need of hour