PATNA, Sept. 15 -- As the rhythmic beats of the dhak draw near, the Bihar government is racing against time to finalise a comprehensive crowd-control blueprint for Durga Puja. Drawing lessons from the recent tragedy at Ashokdham in Lakhisarai and similar mass-casualty crowd disasters across the country, state authorities are drafting an administrative overhaul to ensure that the impending surge of millions of devotees does not culminate in another preventable catastrophe. The initiative marks an effort to transition from routine festival policing to systematic, high-capacity crowd management. "The department is planning comprehensive measures to ensure foolproof crowd control during the upcoming Puja season," Urban development and housing department (UDHD) minister Nitish Mishra said. "We are currently working out the finer details of the plans and will be in a better position to outline the specific framework in a day or two," he said. The blueprint aims to address systemic failure points highlighted by recent crowd disasters nationwide: inadequate communication channels, structural bottlenecks, lax barricading, and flawed entry-exit layouts. Major urban centers, including Patna, Gaya, Muzaffarpur, and Bhagalpur, routinely witness unmanageable human surges, particularly as celebrations peak from Saptami through Dashami. Enforcing strict capacity caps at pandal sites, maintaining dedicated emergency lanes, and ensuring continuous medical escorts will form the core of the strategy. The operational execution, however, faces unprecedented hurdles on the ground. Bihar is currently battling a widespread flood crisis that has paralysed 15 districts: Patna, Bhojpur, Saran, Vaishali, Bhagalpur, Begusarai, Buxar, Samastipur, Munger, Katihar, Lakhisarai, Khagaria, Purnia, Madhepura, and Arwal. Rising river waters have submerged vast swathes of rural and semi-urban belts, leaving thousands displaced and critical infrastructure compromised. This dual emergency has split administrative bandwidth when coordination needs to be at its sharpest. In the capital, festival preparations have been pushed to the periphery as civic and disaster response machinery remains tied down in inundated sectors. "Administrative resources are already heavily stretched due to the ongoing floods across the region," a senior Patna district administration official acknowledged, noting that comprehensive festival preparations will realistically begin only after floodwaters recede and emergency stabilises. When contacted regarding the district's Puja arrangements, Patna District Magistrate Kundan Kumar said initial preparations for crowd management and other aspects for the upcoming Durga puja and other festivals is going on. Essential municipal and utility preparations remain stalled in the pipeline. The state energy department has yet to conduct its mandatory pre-Puja review-a procedural assessment customary before pandals draw massive electrical currents from the city grids. For the state machinery, this festive season represents far more than an annual cultural assembly as an unsparing stress test of governance, where disaster resilience and crowd engineering must function in lockstep. Whether the administration can bridge its planning blueprint with effective execution while managing an active flood emergency will dictate the safety of millions across Bihar in the coming weeks....