With the Chhath rush at its peak at different railway stations, over 60 Scouts and Guides have been deployed to help railway police in crowd management at two of the most busy railway stations of Dhanbad Railway division - Dhanbad Railway station and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Gomoh station for the past three days.

The Scouts and Guides (less than 15 years of age) along with rovers (those volunteers aged between 16 to 25) apart from helping passengers maintain queues at the railway station are also helping senior citizens and disabled individuals embark and disembark trains.

Cadets of ECR Bharat Scouts and Guides, Dhanbad helping RPF in crowd management at Dhanbad station during Chhath rush on Monday. Gautam Dey

Talking to The Telegraph Online Prajjwal Bhattacherjee, in-charge of Scouts and Guides of Dhanbad said, “The initiative to help railway police was flagged off on November 7 at the instruction of DP Singh, senior divisional personnel office of Dhanbad. Scouts and Guides of different groups including, Maharana Pratap Open Group, PSA Group besides 10 rovers have been engaged to work at Dhanbad Railway Station while the Scouts of Netaji Group and eight rovers are on the job at Gomoh Railway station.

“They are also helping the railway police in frisking away the luggages of passengers who are taking time to clear the platform,” said Bhattacharjee. He added that the Scouts and Guides are deputed during the rush hours, especially at night when majority of Bihar bound trains including Ganga Damodar Express, Ganga Sutlej Express and Maurya Express leaves the station for Bihar.

“They are also assisting the police during the day time to manage the rush by arranging the passengers' queues,” said Bhattacharjee. He added that the special drive will conclude after today when rush hour is likely to reduce significantly.

“We started the special during Chhath in 2019 but as there was no rush during 2020 we discontinued the drive in 2020 and resumed it this year” said Bhattacharjee and passengers pay relatively more attention to the instruction of the members of scout groups.

Ashutosh Ram, a rover, deputed at Dhanbad station for the last three days to manage the crowd, said, “The experience in managing the crowds by making queues and also helping the disabled persons on senior citizens is quite satisfying.”.

Echoing a similar sentiment was another rover, Romel Haldar. He said, “Discipline in the most important part of our training for Scouts and Guides so that we face no difficulty in managing everything in an orderly manner at the railway station”