Metro fails disaster management test

An audit report of Saturday's mock drill to check disaster preparedness of agencies in the city has criticised the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for poor crowd management and lack of basic emergency equipment.

An audit report of Saturday's mock drill to check disaster preparedness of agencies in the city has criticised the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for poor crowd management and lack of basic emergency equipment.

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The mock drill was conducted by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on July 28 to check the preparedness and response of Delhi Metro, police, traffic and health authorities to emergency situations.

According to the DDMA, the Army observed that there was no proper crowd management system at a few metro stations. It also said that DMRC did not have any equipment for removing debris.

"DMRC had not given any directions to the Emergency Support Functionaries (ESFs), and at some stations there were common entry and exit gates. Some stations had no ramps for evacuating the differently-abled persons. Not only this, there was a lack of coordination with hospitals and first-aid kits contained improper and inadequate medicines," said the audit report.

The audit stated that the health department responded late, and their chain of evacuation was not clear. "There were no display boards at hospitals and no records of casualties."

"These people perhaps do not know the functioning of mass rapid transit system (MRTS). Crowd management, the world over, in MRTS is done by regulating people at the station entry and to supplement that DDMA is supposed to coordinate with other agencies. We do not lack in crowd management or in other areas such as debris removal arrangements and providing ramp facilities for differently-abled people. We have ramps at every station," said Vikas Kumar, GM (Operations), DMRC.