The railway station witnessed massive crowding on Sunday with thousands of passengers, mostly migrant workers returning to their hometowns in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, gathering at the station at the start of summer vacations and amid slowdown in industrial activity in the textile and diamond hub following the West Asia conflict.
Pandey reviewed the arrangements at the station for managing the holiday rush and return of migrant workers from the textile hub. The GM reviewed passenger handling mechanisms, crowd management measures and overall station preparedness, officials said.
Interacting with the railway officials at the station, he emphasised the need for advanced assessment of passenger inflow, particularly on weekends and during peak travel periods, and directed officials to implement proactive and well-coordinated measures to ensure smooth, safe, and seamless passenger movement while maintaining the highest standards of operational efficiency and passenger convenience.
The top officials also visited the passenger holding areas at Udhna Railway station and examined facilities arranged for passengers. The officials later visited the Surat Railway Station and assessed the situation.
Speaking to media persons at Udhna Railway Station, Pandey said the officials will adopt a new strategy to control rush at the station.
“We have come here to assess what went wrong yesterday. We spoke to officials, including the security personnel, to understand how the situation worsened with passengers breaking the barricades and rushing to catch the train. We will adopt a new strategy to control crowds in the coming days,” Pandey said.
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“On Sunday morning, passengers waiting in the holding areas and outside areas (open ground), learnt that the last train (Udhna-Hasanpur) arrived at the Railway station and there was no other train after that. This has driven the labourers to break the barricades (fencing) from nearby passenger holding areas. More and more people tried to reach the platform and catch the train,” he explained.
Supporting the police officials on duty, Pandey said, “We have seen the videos on social media… The police were trying to control the crowd. They hit the fencing area to scare away the rushing passengers, they did not beat the passengers.”
Pandey said, “Today we ran two special trains from Udhna to North Eastern States, and occupancy was around 50 per cent. We have also planned to run special trains during the weekdays so that there would be no rush on Sunday. We wanted to convey a message to the passengers that we are also running trains in the mid days of week to reduce the weekend rush. We appeal to the passengers to board the trains on weekdays instead of waiting till Sunday. We are also planning to run more trains to UP and Bihar.”
The GM said that a new passenger holding area with all facilities such as water, toilets, fans, mobile charging points will be arranged at the station apart from the existing one, which has a holding capacity of 2,000 people.
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The new holding area, which will be three times bigger than the existing one, will be opened in the next three months, the GM said. “If demand rises, we will run special trains for UP, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha,” the GM said.
On Monday, the Western Railway authorities ran three special trains from Udhna – one to Jayanagar at 12.50 am, to Dhanbad (Jharkhand) at 9.00 am and one to Santragachi (West Bengal) at 11.25 am – apart from the scheduled train 19045 Tapti Ganga – Udhna to Bihar’s Thawe – at 10.20 am.
On Sunday, after the unexpected crowd, the Western Railway had run 10 trains, facilitating the travel of around 24,000 passengers from Udhna Railway station to UP, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal.
