Till date 36 deaths and 39 injuries have been reported in the stampede at Allahabad Railway Station when the pilgrims after taking a dip in the holy Ganga were preparing to return to their homes. The mismanagement of Kumbh mela in which over three crore yatris are supposed to take a dip is attributed to the lack of coordination between the State Government and the Railways Ministry. Two enquiries have been ordered simultaneously, one by the Government of Uttar Pradesh and the other by the Railway Ministry. This is a chaotic situation and one is simply surprised on total lack of coordination between the State and the Union government organizations. Kumbh Mela is an ancient and well known social event and the governments at Lucknow and New Delhi know fairly well that this is an unusually very big affair and needs to be handled with care and caution. It is true that the railways cannot have a magic wand to provide transportation to such a large number of pilgrims at a given point of time. The authorities should have taken into account how the event used to be handled in the past. That practice should have been followed and even improved upon.
We have seen that after every such tragic accident, enquiries are ordered and reports are made. But whether or not the recommendations of enquiry committee are put into practice is not clear? The reason is that the recommendations remain confined to the Government and are not made public. Therefore it become difficult rather impossible to monitor whether or not the recommendations are implemented and recurrence of such accidents avoided in future. If the UP Minster in charge of Kumbh mela has resigned on moral grounds, he has neither put any obligation on the State nor made any memorable sacrifice. Rather he has found the safety valve of escaping the responsibility and as such he cannot escape the consequences. If he had smelt that there was no cooperation from the railway ministry, he should have raised an alarm before the tragedy struck, and issued travel advisory to the prospective pilgrims to re-schedule their journey in view of inability of the railways to provide them adequate travel facility. He has been just sitting on the matter and waiting when the tragedy would happen. This is not the way of running the government and proving to be a representative Government.
We express condolence and sympathy to the bereaved families. We expect the Government to provide best medical treatment to the wounded in the hospitals. They have become the victims of the negligence of concerned authorities and the enquiries set up will identify the culprits responsible for this loss of human lives. We also expect the enquiry committees to suggest permanent or at least long range preventive measures mandatory for the State Government and the railways for future guidance.
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