A Baguiati resident visiting a north Calcutta puja with his family on Sashthi decided not to enter the pandal because he was afraid to take his eight-year-old daughter into a chaotic crowd.
Puja revellers and pandal hoppers across the city shared similar apprehensions, saying crowds appeared more disorderly this year and the usual efficiency of volunteers was missing.
Several Puja organisers said many committees had been taken over by new members who lacked experience in organising pujas and managing crowds. At least one committee said civic volunteers outnumbered regular police personnel. Police, however, denied that this was the case.
“Around 1.30am on Saturday, we went to a north Calcutta pocket with three or four pujas within a kilometre. As we entered the lane, the situation seemed chaotic. I was scared to walk into that kind of crowd with my daughter,” the Baguiati resident said.
A Park Street resident who took her daughters to a popular puja near the Chorebagan pandal on Panchami also had an unpleasant experience. “People were pushing unnecessarily. At another puja in the north, volunteers managing the queue were very young, and the crowd was not listening to them,” said the seasoned pandal hopper.
At a pandal off VIP Road, police deployment increased by nearly 50% on Sunday, a committee member said. The increase came after 19 people were crushed to death and at least 25 were injured at the Chorebagan puja, off Central Avenue.
“From Tuesday until Saturday, we had 50 to 60 personnel, including civic volunteers. The number rose to about 100 from Sunday. We met the police and asked them to increase the number of police personnel, not civic volunteers, because they are inefficient. If civic volunteers are to be deployed, they must be trained,” the committee member said.
The committee has also added 40 people to its private security team.
Organisers said committees could not always manage crowds with their own volunteers or private security personnel and had to depend on uniformed police to ensure a smoother experience for visitors. Several said there was only so much they could do without adequate police deployment.
A senior Kolkata Police officer, however, said deployment had remained unchanged from previous years. “If deployment was a challenge, the same problem would have arisen at other pandals too. At Chorebagan, the narrow lane and the wave-like movement of the crowd during the rain triggered the problem. If Puja committees had more volunteers, the crowd could have been managed better,” the officer said.
Committees that have organised pujas for a decade or more have a sense of expected footfall at different times of the day. “Based on that, committees prepare a roster, deploying more volunteers in the evening and fewer around dawn,” said a member of a south Calcutta Puja committee.
Several organisers said newer committee members lacked experience.
“A committee’s assessment is crucial because its members know how much of a crowd a pandal can accommodate at a given time, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the crowd and the situation, organisers manage the queues themselves. This is knowledge acquired over the years, and it is crucial,” said a member of a south Calcutta Puja committee.
Experienced committees also draw on the shortcomings of previous years to improve their arrangements.