Development of Safety Module for Crowd Management in Simhastha 2016 in Ujjain

Ritu Shrivastava ^[2] | Parag Dalal ^[4] | A. K. Dwivedi ^[3]

Abstract: India is a country of many religions, faiths, festivals and events. The population of India is around 1.32 billion, there are lots of mass gathering events being organized here at various levels involving large number of people. In India It has been observed from the past crowd disasters that having insufficient risk management strategies, one of these is Kumbh Mela. According to epic there was a battle between devas and devils to capture the Urn (Kumbh) containing the nectar, drops of the precious liquid fell on four places Haridwar, Prayag (Allahabad), Nashik and Ujjain. Kumbh Mela, is held once every twelve years at these four places and attracts millions of devotees. In Ujjain Simhasth Mela is held on the bank of River Kshipra Hence, Kshipra River is also named as Moksh Dayni. During the whole period near about 4.2 crores of devotees excluding Mahants, Saints, Mahamandleshwar were taken holy dip in the river Kshipra. Therefore, it is essential to develop crowd management strategies to avoid casualties. These strategies are not only to provide the way for better crowd management, but also for determining suitability of the venue for an event, better route guidance to avoid congestion and finding the pinch points (high risk points). Finally, an overview of pedestrian simulation is presented that can help in developing more strategies for safer events.

Keywords: Simhastha, Crowd Management, Mass Gathering Event, Kshipra River, Stampede, Safety

Edition: Volume 6 Issue 4, April 2017,

Pages: 568 - 571