Fixing accountability for crowd disasters at community-organised festivals is difficult because responsibility is spread across organisers, police and civic bodies. Discuss with reference to recent incidents.

The crowd crush at Kolkata's Chorbagan Sorbojanin Durga Puja pandal on Saptami (17 October 2026) killed 19 people. It set off a blame game among organisers, police and civic authorities [1]. NDMA holds that crowd disasters are completely preventable [6]. When they still happen, the failure lies as much in diffused accountability as in crowd control.

Why accountability is hard to fix

• Split mandate: NIDM's training module gives law and order to the state but places disaster management mainly with organisers and the local or district administration [4]. At a sorbojanin pandal, the "organisers" are untrained volunteer committees.
• Advisory, not binding: NDMA's 2014 guide, Managing Crowd at Events and Venues of Mass Gathering, addresses state governments, local authorities, administrators and organisers together [2]. It does not name a single sign-off authority.
• Duties without enforcement: NDMA's 2016 festive advisory expects barricades, CCTV, route maps and emergency exits [3]. Compliance is rarely made a permit condition.
• Stalled reform: the 2017 Thiruvananthapuram conference was meant to revise the 2014 guide [5]. No revised edition is evident.
• Scale: with thousands of pandals over five days, police cannot be everywhere. Heavy licensing could also crowd out small community pujas.

Recent incidents

• Chorbagan: the site was narrow and dimly lit, and sudden rain set off a rush. Residents alleged there were no police, and that organisers' "wrong announcements" spread panic [1]. Each lapse belonged to a different actor.
• Karur, Tamil Nadu (2025): a crush at a political rally was followed by a similar blame exchange between organisers and police. The problem is not limited to festivals.

Way forward

• Single permit authority that grants approval only if exit capacity and the NDMA checklists are met [2].
• Risk-ranked deployment: NIDM-style sector policing and Quick Response Teams at high-footfall sites, backed by trained community volunteers [4].
• Scripted announcements for rain, overcrowding and evacuation, made by one trained announcer [1].
• Updated norms: NDMA should publish the promised revision, with separate checklists for neighbourhood festivals and mega-events [5].

Crowd disasters at festivals come less from unpredictable crowds than from undefined responsibility. Duties should be written into permits and enforced by District Disaster Management Authorities under the Disaster Management Act, 2005. That would turn NDMA's "preventable" premise into practice [6] and match the Sendai Framework's priority on prevention, so that celebrations stay both vibrant and safe.