Tamil Nadu police deploy AI to manage crowd at Tiruvannamalai for Kathigai Deepam festival

The Tamil Nadu police have deployed Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to manage crowd and vehicular movement at Tiruvannamalai where several lakhs of people are expected to participate in the Kathigai Deepam festival on Wednesday (December 3, 2025). Police said this is the first time the facility is being used for crowd management in the State. 

The State police have roped in IT experts who implemented AI-driven applications for crowd management at the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj early this year. The technology has been integrated with hundreds of CCTV cameras installed along all the roads leading to the Arunachaleswarar Temple, mada streets, girivalam route and other vantage points in Tiruvannamalai.

While security personnel relied mostly on live CCTV feed for crowd control and management in 2024, this year the control room would get timely alerts on potential overcrowding or stampede situations prompting them to send ground forces to intervene. The system would trigger crowd density alerts based on international standards which categorises the gathering of 4-5 people per square metre as a point from where congestion would build and safety risks increase significantly.

Accurate data

“With the AI-driven technology, we will have the exact number of people or vehicles in a location at any given point of time. The accuracy will be about 95%. This data is crucial to assess the number of people at different locations and regulate the crowd accordingly. 4 people in one square metre is a red flag for us and a potential stampede situation. Special teams have been stationed at different locations for responding to crowd density alerts,” says Assistant Superintendent of Police Dhanush Kumar.

Several teams of police personnel deployed to exclusively manage vehicular traffic would also get alerts from the AI tool as regards the exact number of vehicles entering the town and parking lots. Cameras were installed in 35 of the total 100 parking areas and 11 important bus stands in the town.

Live aerial feed

Besides dozens of police assistant booths established at prominently visible locations, hotline telephone booths that would connect to the control room were set-up at 10 places for the people to seek police assistance in the event of any exigency. Like in the previous years, the police would fly drones to have live aerial feed of the festival and keep a watch on the venue’s vicinity.

The Inspector-General of Police (North Zone) Asra Garg, Deputy Inspector-General of Police (Vellore Range) G. Dharmarajan, Superintendent of Police (Tiruvannamalai) M. Sudhakar and other officers reviewed the security arrangements and the contingency plans for the event.

The ‘Deepam 2025’ app developed for the festival would have details of all facilities made available to the devotees such as medical camps, location of ambulances, anna danam locations, contact numbers of officials to be contacted in case of any emergency etc. The real time data captured by the systems could also be accessible by the people, Mr. Kumar said.