SUMMARY
From war rooms to CCTV cameras and wide FOBs – check the details of how the Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw plans to mitigate crowd management at the railway stations in India.

Union Minister of Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw, headed a high-level meeting on Friday to discuss the concerns of crowd management at railway stations across India. The Minister green-lighted following key decisions – (Photo: PTI/Kamal Kishore)

Learning from the Mahakumbh Mela experiences, permanent waiting areas are to be established outside 60 railway stations across the nation. Pilot projects have already begun at New Delhi, Anand Vihar, Varanasi, Ayodhya, and Patna stations. As per the new plan, passengers will be given permission to go to platforms only after the arrival of trains at the platforms (Photo: Agencies)

At these 60 stations, complete access control will be started. Under this, only the passengers who have confirmed reserved tickets will be allowed to the platforms. Every unauthorised entry points to the platform will be sealed (Photo: PTI)

To mitigate the crowd management issue on the foot-over bridges (FOBs) on the stations, two new designs have been developed, taking inspiration from Mahakumbh. Designs of 12 metre wide (40 feet) and 6 metre wide (20 feet) FOBs are ready, which will be installed in all the railway stations (Photo: Agencies)

CCTV cameras will be installed in large numbers at all the stations and the nearby areas for close monitoring of the crowd at the platforms and stations (Photo: Shutterstock)

The minister has finalised the development of “war rooms” at the large railway stations in the country. During heavy crowd influx, the officers from all the departments will work in the war room to monitor the crowd management efforts (Photo: Agencies)

Major railway stations across the nation will have senior officers designated as station directors to monitor the railway stations wholistically. The station directors will be financially empowered to facilitate on-the-spot decisions for the improvement of the stations. The directors will also have the right to control the ticket sales as per the capacity of the stations and availability of the trains operating (Photo: PTI/Arun Sharma)