Poor crowd management marks day-two of agri exhibition

Poor crowd management and lack of police protection led to a stampede-like situation at the State-level agricultural exhibition in Tiruchi on Friday.

Poor crowd management and lack of police protection led to a stampede-like situation at the State-level agricultural exhibition in Tiruchi on Friday.

According to a rough estimate, more than 25,000 farmers thronged Care College of Engineering on the outskirts of the city to visit the exhibition on the second day of the three-day event organised by the Department of Agriculture on Friday. While a section of them came on their own, most were brought in vans and charted buses from various places including Namakkal, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Tirunelveli, Ramanathapuram, Thiruvannamalai, Coimbatore and others. As the day progressed, the crowds began to swell. However, in the absence of proper guidance, the farmers struggled to visit the stalls. They were seen entering into heated exchanges with the organisers at some places when they blocked their entry.

Confusion and chaos were witnessed around 1 p.m. at the enclosure, where arrangements were made to distribute food to the farmers. About 10 food counters were established to distribute food to the farmers, who were given tokens. But, the number of counters turned out to be highly insufficient. The farmers, who stood in long queues, lost patience at a point of time and surged in droves to get food, thereby leading to a stampede-like situation. The persons, who were tasked with distributing food, could not handle the situation and opted to go out. It was thereafter free for all.

Farmers, who could not get food, expressed dismay over the arrangements.

“The organisers should have made better arrangements. Had they made arrangements to serve food on tables, the situation could have been avoided,” said K. Dharmalingam of Kallakurichi.

V.P. Sriram of Chengalpattu said that crowd management was poor. The situation did not allow the farmers to spend time at stalls to get the needed inputs. The organisers and the district administration should take steps to regulate the crowd on the last day of the exhibition on Saturday.

When contacted Collector M. Pradeep Kumar told The Hindu it was originally expected that the visitors would be around 15,000. on Friday. But, more than 35,000 visitors had turned up. It was unexpected and it had led to some issues. The officials have been given instructions to handle the crowd well on the last day on Saturday. “We are prepared to handle 40,000 visitors and above. Two hundred policemen will be on duty. There will be no issues in distributing food on Saturday,” the Collector said.