The Union Home Ministry has set up a committee under Major General A K Gupta, IG (Operations) NSG. The committee, which had its first meeting on Monday, has been assigned the job of overhauling the disaster management manual of the Metro Railway.

The committee will look into the possibilities of situations like terror strikes, flood crisis, tunnel blocking and earthquakes.

“There are proposals of creating a comprehensive disaster management plan. The committee, chaired by the NSG representative, has representatives from different sectors. It strives to formulate a standardised procedure for managing disaster situations,” said Chief Operations manager, Metro Railway, Jayanta Mitra.

At present, the number of officials manning the 17 Metro stations in the city under the Metro Railway Police (MRP) is only 77. Metro authorities have been holding discussions with the city police for increasing the number.

The 77 personnel, drawn from the Kolkata police, were sanctioned for the MRP, when there were only five Metro stations in the city. The number of personnel has remained static even though the Metro has 17 stations now.

The Kolkata police had also submitted a proposal to the Railway Board for introducing 1175 security posts at Metro, following which a committee was set up to look into the matter, which recommended the creation of 685 posts.