Extra crowds expected during Holi season to be contained in waiting areas, say officials
Dadar is one of the stations with heavy crowds. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
The Central Railway on Saturday said it is restricting the sale of platform tickets at six stations—Mumbai CSMT, Dadar, Kurla LTT, Thane and Kalyan Panvel—for a few days to avoid extra crowding during the Holi festival season. “In view of extra crowds on platforms due to the upcoming Holi festival, sale of platform tickets has been restricted from March 8 to 16 to avoid excessive crowding and any untoward incident,” a senior CR official said.
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At a high-level meeting on Friday headed by minister of railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on crowd control at stations, a number of key decisions were taken, including creation of permanent waiting areas outside stations at 60 stations across the country which periodically face heavy crowds. With the concept, crowd surge will be contained within the waiting area. Passengers will be allowed to go to platforms only when the trains arrive.
“There is also a plan of complete access control at these 60 identified stations where only passengers with confirmed reserved tickets only will be given direct access to the platforms and passengers without a ticket or on the waiting list will wait in the outside waiting area. Also, two new designs of 12-metre-wide (40 feet) and six-metre-wide (20 feet) standard FOB have been developed. Besides cameras for monitoring crowds, up-to-date digital communication equipment like walkie-talkies and calling systems will be installed at heavy crowd stations,” a senior official said.
“The station director will get financial empowerment so that he can take on-the-spot decisions for improving the station. He will also be empowered to control the sale of tickets” the official added.
10-point agenda to ease crowding
>> Permanent outside waiting areas at select stations
>> Access control in the works
>> Wide design foot over bridges
>> Cameras for monitoring
>> War rooms
>> New generation communication equipment
>> New design ID card
>> New uniform design for staff
>> Upgradation of station director post
>> Sale of tickets as per capacity
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