New Delhi, Sep 23 (PTI) The Railway Protection Force (RPF) will create a digital repository of all potentially crowded events at stations from 2022 onwards so that it can timely deploy manpower, regulate passenger movement and coordinate with state police to prevent untoward incidents in the future.
Some of these high-footfall events include festivals, religious gatherings, melas, examinations, recruitment drives, political programmes, sporting events, cultural and social events, fairs, major public functions and tourist seasons, among others.
Named the ‘DS-12 E-Forecasting Register of RPF for High-Footfall Events’ (EFRR), the digital system will “serve as the single digital repository for advance forecasting, monitoring, action taken and post-event assessment of high-footfall events”.
The RPF headquarters, on September 17, 2026, ordered the concerned senior zonal security officials to operationalise the EFRR with immediate effect and ensure timely data entry of forthcoming high-footfall events.
Prior to this order, the Director General of the RPF had issued a directive detailing all aspects of the EFRR, along with its purpose and implementation process.
The directive, while highlighting the need for institutionalised advance forecasting mechanism, said, “Experience has shown that the absence of timely information, inadequate assessment of likely passenger movement, fragmented dissemination of information and, in some cases, casual or inadequate appreciation of the seriousness of the situation at supervisory levels can adversely affect the preparedness of the field formations,”
“Recent crowd-related incidents have further underscored the necessity of shifting from a largely reactive approach to a systematic, advanced, intelligence-led and data-driven mechanism for forecasting and managing passenger surges,” it added.
Making the RPF Special Wing (SIB) personnel primarily responsible for making entries in the DS-12 Register, the Directive said, “The concerned SIB unit shall ensure that every high footfall event falling within its jurisdiction and having the potential to result in a substantial or unusual passenger surge is entered in the Register as soon as sufficient and credible information becomes available.”
It has given a time frame for fixed calendar events such as Holi, Diwali, Chhath, Christmas, major religious festivals and other recurring events whose dates are known in advance to be highlighted in the system early “to facilitate meaningful planning, which may be even prior to 60 days in advance”.
“For events such as melas, sporting events, examinations, recruitment examinations, political rallies/meetings, local festivals, fairs, cultural programmes and other events which are generally notified at shorter notice, the concerned SIB unit shall make all efforts to obtain information at least three weeks in advance, wherever practicable,” it said stating that an event is announced or confirmed at shorter notice, the entry shall be made immediately upon receipt of credible information.
Officials said that the EFRR is envisaged as an important institutional mechanism for strengthening the RPF’s capacity to anticipate and manage high-footfall situations across Indian Railways. PTI JP JP NB
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