The Railway Ministry has directed Rights (Rail India Technical and Economic Service) Limited to design a permanent holding area at five major railway stations including New Delhi. The other four stations are Anand Vihar, Ghaziabad, Varanasi and Ayodhya.
More than 60 congested railway stations will be expanded
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav gave this information after a meeting with Rights team chairman Rahul Mittal on Wednesday. He informed that once the model is ready, it will be expanded to 60 more congested railway stations. In addition, all unauthorized entry points of these stations will be closed.
According to Vaishnav, these holding areas will be integrated with the Amrit Station redevelopment program, under which these stations are being modernized with world class passenger facilities. After the stampede at New Delhi railway station on Saturday evening, the Railway Ministry has launched various measures to control the crowd at the stations.
Work on mob management manual
In this stampede, 18 passengers were killed while many others were injured. Apart from creating a holding area at 60 stations, other measures include a separate mob management manual and raising awareness for passengers not to sit on the stairs.
Earlier, the Railway Minister had said on Monday that 60 such stations have been identified where New Delhi, Patna, Banaras, Buxar, Ara, Gaya, Surat, Bengaluru, Coimbatore etc. have been identified, where there is more pressure from the passengers. Here on festivals and special occasions, sudden crowds increase. At these stations, a holding area will be found and the crowd of passengers inside the station will be found.
Permission to enter the platform will be allowed according to the departure of the train
Passengers will be allowed to enter the platform according to the departure of their train so that the station area is not crowded. He also said that a standard operation process (SOP) would be prepared to handle the crowd.
