Crowd Management and Strategies for Security and Surveillance During the Large Mass Gathering Events: The Prayagraj Kumbh Mela 2019 Experience

Abstract

The Kumbh Mela is the largest religious and spiritual mass gatherings on the Earth. In this way, it remains a source of fascination for vast numbers of Hindus throughout the world. Around 240 million pilgrims participated during Kumbh Mela 2019. The Crowd management and the strategy for Security and surveillance have become a big challenge for such huge gatherings. This paper tries to find out the various risk factors and its management. It examines the role and responsibilities of various stakeholders in crowd management. Despite of some difficulties like lack of knowledge of number of people, crowd psychology and its behaviour pattern, this paper provides a comprehensive approach for risk analysis, preparedness, management and mitigation. The purpose is to make spiritual mass gathering events incidence free and enhance user experience by applying design thinking approach. Although this paper tried to cover all the aspects of crowd management and strategies for security and surveillance during mass gathering events, still many more approaches are there which can be further explored. The mega tent city that accommodates nearly millions of pilgrims in the river bed is significant not only for India, but also for mass gathering research at international level to draw policy. This provides the multifunctional issues to study the mega crowd events. This provides the opportunity to generate the field level evidence and document base for disaster management.

Keywords: Crowd management; Kumbh Mela; Mass gathering; Security; Surveillance.

Fig. 1

Pilgrim’s participation in Kumbh Mela and Ardh Kumbh mela

Fig. 2

The traffic management plan from City area to Sangam area during Kumbh Mela 2019 ( Source: Prayagraj Mela Authority)

Fig. 3

Trigger and response system at ICCC