Major airports to do away with hand baggage stamping

Stamping of hand baggage may finally see an exit in major airports by next month with authorities expected to finish examination of security architecture at these facilities by then.

CISF Director General O P Singh said only Indian airports still have the practice of stamping of hand baggages despite adopting better security features.

“It needs to be done away with and will be implemented by next month,” Singh told a press conference here even as a committee of experts from the government and security agencies are heading to 59 airports to study the security structure before implementing the scheme.

Last month, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) had announced that it will do away with hand baggage tags in seven airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kochi.

However, on March 2, the decision was overturned and the government decided to go in for a security analysis of all airports following objections from the CISF against rushing through the project.

“There is a need to change. We will need to have high-definition cameras, repositioning of cameras. We may need to increase number of personnel. Some of the issues were flagged during earlier surveys. If they have rectified these, then there is no problem in rolling out the scheme,” Singh said.

Full body scanners
On the introduction of full body scanners, he said the equipment was experimented at the Delhi airport and is trying to improvise on it.

“It is in vogue in several countries. We will see and take a decision,” he said adding, “rapid changes are happening in airports and other vital installations across the world. We need to change rapidly.”

Asked about the preparations by the CISF to thwart possible lone wolf attacks on the Delhi Metro and airports, he said the force is working on a comprehensive concept paper,  which details the line of action to be taken in such situations.