MODERNZIATIONS IN SECURITY CHECK AT AIRPORTS

Related Articles

India-Korea Electronic Origin Data Exchange System (EODES)

December 10, 2023

Biosphere Reserve

November 3, 2023

Cheetahs in India

September 29, 2023

• The long queues of air travellers removing their laptops, mobile phones and chargers from their cabin baggage before screening them could soon become history in India.
• The aviation security regulator, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), is expected to issue technical norms within a month which will pave the way for airports to adopt modern equipment to screen bagswithout removing electronic devices.
• “Newer technologies are needed for better security as well as passenger convenience,” BCAS director general
• “All airports, including Delhi airport, need to improve the machines deployed for screening of cabin bags.
• They are lagging behind. Technologies such as dual x-ray, computer tomography and neutron beam technology will eliminate the need for passengers to remove laptops and other electronic devices,” a senior official of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which oversees airport security, told The Hindu on the condition of anonymity. 

Overcrowded airports

• The call for modernisation comes at a time when airports across the country are seeing a record number of air travellers that have already exceeded pre-COVID levels.
• A total of 4.27 lakh domestic travellers were seen on December 11. At the Delhi airport, which recently saw over-crowding resulting in passengers missing flights, security lanes were found to be the biggest congestion points primarily because the number of X-ray machines for screening cabin bags were not commensurate with passenger traffic.
• Senior government officials have blamed airports for failing to grow their infrastructure to cater to growing number of flights and passengers, and Civil Aviation Minister JyotiradityaScindia stepped in to order the airport operator to provide more machines for screening cabin bags.
• While the CISF provides its personnel, security infrastructure at airports is the airport operator’s prerogative.
• While the traditional X-ray machines currently used at airports produce a 2-D image, newer technologies such as computer tomography produce a 3-D image with a higher resolution, and have better automated detection of explosives.
• They also have a low rate of false alarms, which often lead to CISF personnel requiring a physical inspection of a bag. These factors result in a higher baggage throughput through the machine.
• The technical specifications for modern machines for screening cabin bags are likely to be issued within a month, according to a senior official of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
• These will accompany a new set of technical specifications and trial directives for the much-delayed full-body scanners to be installed at airports for detecting non-metallic items on passengers once they pass through the existing door-frame metal detectors.
• The initial BCAS deadline for installing them was March 2020, but it has been extended multiple times, and now stands pushed to December 2023.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB