After the stampede incident on the Mansa Devi temple road in Haridwar, the government has also become active in line with the instructions of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami to take effective steps in view of crowd management and security in major temples, religious places. In this episode, Chief Secretary Anand Bardhan, in a meeting held in the Secretariat on Tuesday, directed the officials to mark all such religious places in the state, where there is a possibility of stampede-like incidents due to excessive crowd on important days. He also directed to get the major temples surveyed by a team of experts for crowd management. In view of the steps to be taken for crowd management and security, the commissioners will be nodal officers in both the divisions. The Chief Secretary said that technology should also be used for crowd management in religious places. Also, places should be made to stop devotees on the routes in case of excessive crowd. He directed that a route and circulation plan should be made for each religious place, so that the crowd does not increase suddenly. If there is a possibility of crowd increasing, devotees can be stopped at pre-determined places. All kinds of physical and technical arrangements should be ensured for crowd management and security.
In this episode, taking the more important temples on priority, he directed to get the Mansa Devi, Chandi Devi, Neelkanth, Kainchi Dham and Purnagiri temples surveyed by a team of experts in the first phase. The team of experts will analyze the temple areas and test the civil engineering and technical aspects for crowd management, evacuation plan and bottleneck. Along with this, a comprehensive action plan will be made for other arrangements including places to stay at various places and the team of experts will also prepare the SOP. For this, the team of experts was also directed to provide all possible assistance from the level of local administration and stakeholders.
He also directed to free the public places on the routes connecting the religious places from encroachment and widen the road there and run a continuous campaign to remove encroachment. Director General of Police Deepam Seth, Principal Secretary RK Sudhanshu, Secretary Shailesh Bagauli, Dhiraj Singh Garbyal, IG Garhwal Rajeev Swaroop were present in the meeting, while Divisional Commissioner of Kumaon Deepak Rawat joined through video conferencing.
