Delhi stampede | Crowd control, safety must be national mission: Anand Mahindra
Mahindra Group boss urges engineering and management schools at Mahindra University, Hyderabad, to work together and devise a template for a solution
India must make crowd control and safety a national mission, Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group, has suggested in an X post while commenting on the New Delhi railway station stampede on Saturday (February 15).
Mahindra’s statement on X
He tweeted that the incident, which led to the loss of 18 lives, is heart-breaking and a national tragedy.
Mahindra said, “As the world’s most populous nation, with one of the lowest per capita incomes, we need to make crowd control & safety an article of faith & a national mission.”
Also read: Delhi stampede: Families hold photos, launch desperate search for missing loved ones
He suggested that India needs a template for crowd management, which is a combination of technology and process analysis. He called everyone to chip in for this.
He concluded his statement by requesting the engineering and management schools at Mahindra University, Hyderabad, to work together on the problem and devise a template for a solution.
Potential causes of the stampede
According to witnesses, there was a sudden platform change, which prompted people to rush, pushing and shoving each other in a frenzy. Apart from a lack of prior intimation by the railways about the change in platforms, trains were severely delayed.
Also read: Delhi stampede: Two trains named 'Prayagraj' caused the confusion, claim police
The two trains were the Swatantrata-Senani Express and the Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani, their delay causing the crowds to build on platforms 12, 13 and 14.
Rumours of a bridge collapse also furthered the frenzy on the platforms as people climbed over each other to escape. Seemingly, the most egregious mismanagement by the Indian Railways was the overselling of 2,600 general tickets.
Also read: After stampede, curbs on sale of platform tickets at New Delhi station
The UTS sells around 7,000 general tickets on an average but according to a Moneycontrol report, it sold 9,600 tickets on the day of the incident. An official was quote by The Indian Express as saying that due to the Maha Kumbh surge, railways officials could not check tickets on several railway lines, so the estimated numbers of people at the station might have been higher than previously thought.