Barrackpore’s puja security plan has been strengthened with drone surveillance at major pandals, active women’s safety teams and stricter enforcement against noise violations, following an administrative meeting held in the industrial belt. The measures were announced by West Bengal Labour and Transport Minister Arjun Singh as police prepared for the festival season.
At the meeting at Sukanta Sadan, Singh directed the police not to treat complaints of harassment or abusive remarks targeting women at puja venues lightly. The instruction places complaints involving women’s safety among the priority issues for police and organisers during the festival period.
The police plan includes drone monitoring at large puja pandals. The report also said that women’s safety teams, referred to as Durgabahini, would remain active during the celebrations. Police were separately warned to take firm action against violations of noise rules, particularly the excessive use of DJ systems after Mahalaya.
Barrackpore Police Commissioner Amit Kumar Singh said around 3,000 pujas had received permission across the commissionerate’s 23 police station areas. The scale of the event will require coordination between police, organisers and volunteers, particularly at venues expected to draw large crowds.
Puja committees have been instructed to arrange an adequate number of volunteers for crowd management. The commissioner has already inspected arrangements at major pujas in Kanchrapara and Halisahar, according to the report. These inspections are intended to assess preparations at prominent venues before the main festival crowds arrive.
The administrative meeting also included the distribution of government grant cheques to 1,100 puja committees at Sukanta Sadan. The remaining committees are expected to receive their cheques through local police stations. The distribution places the police-led local administration at the centre of both festival coordination and the delivery of state support to organisers.
The security arrangements come as Barrackpore’s festival network prepares to manage a large number of permitted events across a densely populated industrial region. The reported measures combine surveillance, policing, volunteer deployment and noise regulation rather than relying on a single intervention. For residents and visitors, the immediate operational questions will be how complaints are recorded, how crowded pandals are monitored and how organisers maintain movement through busy areas.
The report also said that Chief Minister Shubhendu Adhikari may inaugurate four or five major pujas in the industrial belt over the next few days. Police and organisers are expected to continue venue inspections and local coordination as the festival programme advances.
