A tale of inefficient organizers

Who is to be held responsible for a mess when thousands of people turn up for the event, which is poorly organized and ends up in a mess injuring the participants. Is it the hosting institute or the agency which is conducting that event.

 

This is exactly my question to the organizers of the Job fair held at Saptgiri collage of engineering on June 9th and 10th. The job fair was organized for all the freshers passing out of the engineering collage. The time given to the participants was 8:30 AM for the registration. By 9:AM around more than a thousand freshers were present at the venue. nothing happened till 10:00 AM. When I went and asked the organizers about the delay, they said the HR is deciding on how to take organize the event and make the registrations. The estimated expected was 20 thousand. They were not at all prepared for the crowd. There were 2 counters and the crowd was split in to two lines. By 11:00 AM, when the participants were loosing there patience, the organizers told the gathered crowd, which had swollen to about 8 thousand freshers (quoting their own numbers) to come in a group of 50 each. There was a literal stamped crushing some students on the ground. One of them was my little sister, who had some minor injuries. There were other who were seriously injured, for I saw a strecter being carried.

 

I reached there after the mess was cleared to find my sister and her friends totally frustrated with the arrangements. I saw some guys sitting at the center of the amphi theater and giving out tokens and time slots for tests. I saw a huge crowd around the amphi theater struggling to get a gimps of what was going on there. The volunteers were giving all direction less "directions" to the confused crowd, which could lead to another stamped.

 

I decided to talk to the placement officer of the collage and went to her chamber. I went to ask her what she was doing for the safety of the students who had come that far to the event. I found her resting in her chamber looking from her window. I suggested her to stop the event or chalk out a proper schedule for the registration. She pleaded helplessness and accepted she was not able to handle the 8 thousand plus crowd. When I asked who was responsible if something had happened to my sister, who almost suffocated and was stepped over by the crowd running towards the gate when they was asked to come in groups of 50, the authorities there said they are not responsible for what had happened to my sister as they blamed the whole mess on the so called in-discipline and manners of the students. They said they can not control such a huge crowd. I had to say that if they are not in a position in handling the crowd as they claimed, then they should not organize such a big event in the first place.

 

For that comment of mine, a guy who claimed he was from the media and is part of the group which conducted the event came yelling at me, almost hit me. I was being polite and clam even after seeing my sister hurt and weeping, on the other hand a ill organized event, because of which many got hurt which had to be responsible for the safety of the participants, was yelling at me. They claimed they were a very big organizers and no one can doubt their reputation on handling such a event. I say no one had to doubt there capabilities...for it was so very evident from the mess which was seen by thousands of people present there and the number of hurt and injured students who had come from far and distant places in a hope of getting a good job at the fair....