Didi meets Puja organisers and outlines her do's and dont's

With a little more than a month to go for the Durga Pujas and with preparations in full swing, chief minister Mamata Banerjee took the opportunity to meet over 350 festival organizers from different parts of Kolkata in a "coordination meeting". The meeting was organised by Calcutta police at Netaji Indoor Stadium.
On the occasion, Mamata Banerjee outlined a number of do's and dont's that should be followed to ensure that everything goes like clockwork.
This has been reported in telegraphindia.com dated 31 August 2016.

This has been a regular annual exercise for the past few years where the entire cabinet is present along with other leaders and representatives of the state police and different agencies, including fire services, CESC, disaster management and the PWD.
The basic objective is to have a direct interaction with representatives of clubs and address potential problems that could come in the way of a safe festive period.
Among the measures identified by the chief minister are -

Crowd management - the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) must ensure that all the gates at every park hosting a Puja were kept open. Three of the gates should be for dispersal of crowds and only one for entry. This is because lat year, there was a stampede at Deshapriya Park in south Calcutta which had boasted of the 'world's tallest Durga'. 11 persons were injured in the stampede and Calcutta police had to shut down the puja.

Ambulance - each Puja organiser must keep at least two ambulances ready for any emergency. It seems a number of Puja organisers admitted they never thought of such a plan.

Power cut - puja organisers should keep ready large battery-operated torches for any power outage. This is to prevent people from creating trouble. Moreover, the Puja organisers should deploy large teams of volunteers and also keep ropes ready for crowd management.

Immersion - immersions would not be allowed on October 12 which is Muharram. On October 11, which is Dashami, immersions would be allowed till 4 pm. October 13 would be a full immersion day.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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