Date:
22/05/2019
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The Background
World’s largest spiritual gathering - Kumbh Mela, is a highly revered religious event for the Hindu sages and ascetics who arrive every year to be a part of this spectacular fair displaying uniqueness of the Hindu tradition, culture and historical significance. One of the most crowded and incredibly exclusive religious celebrations, the Kumbh Mela showcases India’s ‘Civilizational Continuity’ and demonstrates the richness of its thousand-of-years-old culture.
Millions of pilgrims’ flock to the holy cities to take a holy dip in the river water originating from Haridwar, touching Ujjain, Nashik, and meeting together in confluence in Prayagraj. For such a mega event to take place, a massive 39 sq. km of area was turned into a temporary city; build by 20,000 construction workers providing shelter to thousands of pilgrims, sages and ascetics during the Kumbh. The whole area had an arrangement of 1 lakh makeshift urinals, 20,000 sanitation workers in service, and shelter-facilities brightened by 40,000 LED lights to brighten the ceremony. Managing an expansive area and ensuring safety and security of people in lakhs, was not an easy task. Hence, the authorities were planning to implement several security measures considering factors like area, number of people, vulnerable spots and methods of security arrangement.
Challenges Faced
Safe movement of pilgrims, monitoring of crowd, incident management, and dispersals through the gates were some of the key challenges faced by the concerned authorities during the Kumbh. Concurrently, 4 Police Lines with 40 Police Thanas, 3 Mahila Thanas, 62 Police Outposts, Jal Police were established; with 3 Units along the river stretch, and 1 Mounted Police Line were to be managed while ensuring seamless pilgrim movement by the river front and in other crucial religious spots. Monitoring a massive crowd running in millions for preventing stampede-like situation, required cutting edge security solutions such as an integrated CCTV surveillance system (ICCC).
Solution by CP PLUS
Collaborating with the UP Police during 2019, CP PLUS installed a total number of 1,135 CCTV cameras covering 268 vulnerable locations of the expansive 39 sq. kms of area. An Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) was set up, which included 2 sub-command and control centres with 4 video monitoring cells and 20 video wall cubes, well-connected to 1,135 CCTV cameras throughout the 268 crucial spots of the Kumbh Mela. The integrated ICCC surveillance solution by CP PLUS helped in the monitoring of crowd activities and provided with round the clock surveillance of the entire expanse, preventing any misfortunate occurrences. The ICCC unit was manned by 120 monitoring operators and 30 call centre operators were duly engaged to perform their duties, making the execution of this mammoth-size project by CP PLUS a roaring success.
CP PLUS meticulously combined some of the latest surveillance solutions for the event :
- Video Analytics and Real-Time Video Analysis for Crowd Management.
- Real-time detection and alert algorithm for overcrowded spaces.
- Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) System for parking sites.
- Vehicle detection by colour along with vehicle search by vehicle colour/license plate and date time combinations.
- Variable Message Display (VMD) Boards.
- Real-time information dissemination containing warnings, traffic advice, route guidance and emergency messages.
- Text and graphic based messages display.
- Integrated Traffic Management System.
The Impact
For such an elaborately organized religious fest, thousands of Police personnel were deployed while the event went on for more than 20 days with zero reportage of any mishap. Entire expanse of the Kumbh Mela was secured with Integrated Command and Control Centre, manned by operators remotely helping the authorities in viewing live feeds of vulnerable areas, enabled early alarm mechanism and provided complete control on crowd movement for the Police personnel.
Director General - UP Police, Mr. O.P Singh applauded the efforts of the Police personnel and CP PLUS, the primary enabler of the security at The Kumbh by quoting, “We employed all kinds of modern surveillance technologies to make this Kumbh Mela a huge success. Simultaneously, forces – ATS and NSG were on duty to prevent terrorists acts and criminal or unpleasant incidents in the fair. Commandos monitored the event via choppers and worked in collaboration with surveillance provider in the prevention of any mishap. For us, it was crucial to maintain safety of the people at the most vulnerable spots without intervening in the fair rituals. We received tremendous support from the designated surveillance teams who enabled us in monitoring such a massive crowd as per our requirement with zero mishap count.”
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