Festival Bandobast with a Staff Shortfall
A district police control room is planning bandobast for a three-day fair in a town with 100 constables available. The crowd forecast is 40,000 on day 1, 55,000 on day 2 and 25,000 on day 3. The standing norm is one constable per 500 persons in the fair area. In addition, the plan must provide 10 constables for the control room, 15 for traffic, and a reserve of 20 constables for law-and-order emergencies. The reserve and specialist posts are in addition to the crowd-deployment number. On day 2, 8 constables have applied for leave, and the SP says no leave can be cancelled without a written order. The planning officer claims the available strength is sufficient if the fair-area deployment is reduced slightly.
1. Calculate the peak requirement and determine whether the planning officer's claim is correct.
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Peak crowd is day 2: 55,000. At one constable per 500 persons, the fair area needs 55,000 ÷ 500 = 110 constables.
Add the specialist and reserve posts: 110 + 10 control room + 15 traffic + 20 reserve = 155 constables.
Available strength is 100, so the shortfall is 155 − 100 = 55 even before leave. With 8 on leave, available strength is 92, and the shortfall becomes 63.
The claim that a slight reduction in fair-area deployment solves the problem is false: reducing the fair area below 110 would break the one-per-500 norm and still leave a large gap. The real requirement is additional staff or a formal reduction in the deployment norm with documented risk.
2. Headquarters can send only 30 additional constables. With the 8 leave cases, propose a deployment plan and state which posts you would protect first.
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With 30 additional and 8 on leave, available strength = 100 + 30 − 8 = 122. The requirement is 155, so the shortfall is 33.
Protect the control room (10) and the reserve (20) first, because without them the command-and-response system collapses in an emergency. That leaves 92 for the fair area and traffic.
A defensible plan is: control room 10, reserve 20, traffic 10, fair area 82. This keeps command, reserve and traffic functioning, but the fair area falls below the norm of 110. The officer must record that crowd density is below the standing norm, request the remaining 33 constables, and prepare gate closures or staggered entry if the crowd reaches 55,000. Cutting the reserve to fill the fair area would be the wrong trade-off because the reserve is the only immediate response to a crush or clash.
3. If the day-2 forecast rises by 10%, recalculate the requirement and state the new shortfall with the original 100 constables and 8 leave cases.
Read the worked answer
A 10% rise on 55,000 gives 60,500. Fair-area requirement = 60,500 ÷ 500 = 121 constables.
Add 10 control room + 15 traffic + 20 reserve = 166 constables required.
With 100 available and 8 on leave, available strength is 92, so the shortfall is 166 − 92 = 74.
Even if the 8 leave cases were cancelled, the shortfall would be 66. The revised forecast therefore turns a staffing gap into a serious crowd-safety risk; the control room should request additional companies, reduce the entry rate, and pre-position quick-response teams rather than simply spreading the same constables thinner.