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Extra CISF, immigration staff, more scanners to free up Delhi airport
The Union home ministry has sanctioned 1,400 more CISF personnel for the three terminals at the IGI airport
New Delhi: The Union government has decided to deploy additional Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel and immigration officers, as well as more scanning equipment at the Delhi airport to help decongest the airport, people familiar with the development said on Thursday.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla, with officials from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), the director general of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), and representatives of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS).
An official aware of the discussions said the Union home ministry has sanctioned 1,400 more CISF personnel for the three terminals at the IGI airport – they will be stationed as soon as possible. The sanctioning of additional personnel will mean that around 6,500 CISF personnel will man the core security areas at Delhi airport.
Subsequently, DIAL has been asked by the home secretary to increase security equipment to cater to increasing number of passengers, so that waiting time of travellers is reduced.
Immigration authorities have also been asked to ensure that all counters are open during peak hours, even if it means pulling additional staff from other areas to Delhi airport, said a second officer, who asked not to be named.
Delhi airport officials said that there was significant improvement in crowd management in the last 24 hours. “The domestic departures will see installation of a fifth additional x-ray machine, thus taking the total to 18 machines from the 13 machines until recently. International departures too have 17 x-ray machines now,” an official said, asking not to be named.
Civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, on Wednesday, told TV channels that he has asked the airport operator to complete the expansion of terminal 1 by October 2023 instead of January 2024 so that passengers are not inconvenienced during the next winter peak season.
He also said that flights from terminal 3 (T3) during peak hours will either be shifted to non-peak hours or will depart from T2 or T1.
Officials said the number of terminal entry gates were increased to 18 from 16 after Scindia’s visit, and will further go up to 20.
Similarly, the number of immigration counters and security check lines are also being increased, they said.
The government, in a written reply to YSR Congress MP Maddila Gurumoorthy on Thursday said that the upgradation and modernisation of airport infrastructure is a continuous process and is undertaken by AAI and other airport developers from time to time, depending on the availability of land, commercial viability, socio-economic considerations, traffic demand/willingness of airlines to operate to/from such airports.
Scindia on Wednesday said that steps taken by the government to ease congestion at the Delhi airport were starting to show results, and expressed confidence that the crisis would be resolved to a large extent over the next week.
The minister said the agencies concerned were addressing the chokepoints. The first, entry into the terminal building, is being eased by creating more ingress points (from 16 to 18). Second, security checkpoint queues have been expanded to 17 from 13, and, third, airlines have been asked to ensure their counters are adequately staffed at times so that baggage drops happen on time.
