Stamping of hand baggage tags at seven airports to continue
NEW DELHI: A recent decision to do away with the tagging of the fliers' hand baggage at seven airports has been temporarily shelved due to want of the requisite security gadgets.
The decision, to stay the order of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), was taken today during a high-level meeting chaired by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and his counterpart in the Civil Aviation ministry Jayant Sinha.
The BCAS had issued a circular on February 23 declaring doing away with the mandatory practice of putting security stamp on the hand baggage tags at seven airports with "immediate effect", despite an objection by the CISF.
Officials said it was decided to form a committee comprising senior officials from the BCAS, CISF and operators of the seven airports - Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Cochin, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad - to plug the "grey" areas at these sensitive facilities so that the possibility of any security breach can be ruled out once the procedure of stamping of tag is done away with.
"The scheme would be implemented at these airports after ratification by the committee. A similar exercise would be conducted simultaneously at the remaining 52 airports under the CISF cover for recommending modifications in the security architecture and CCTV systems so that this scheme could be implemented there as well," a statement from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) said.
Explaining the CISF's logic to get smart gadgets installed first, a senior official said, "It was important to bolster the security system at the airports to a level which was being achieved by the stamping of the hand baggage tags.
"The stamp tags help to establish at what level a possible oversight in security could have happened...the security agencies want this to be achieved by sophisticated gadgetry," he said.
During the meeting, also attended by the CISF DG O P Singh and Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey, the CISF reiterated that it needs High Definition (HD) multi-angle CCTV cameras in security hold areas, standby cameras with power backup facility, video analytics in CCTV and physical barriers by way of deploying acrylic sheets at X-ray baggage clearing levels so that the personnel who clears a bag could be "easily identified for the purpose of fixing accountability", officials said.
Responding to the decision of continuing with the stamping of bags, Rijiju tweeted: "No final decision is taken yet. A committee will visit 59 airports across the country. Will take a final call after the report is complete."
The decision, to stay the order of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), was taken today during a high-level meeting chaired by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and his counterpart in the Civil Aviation ministry Jayant Sinha.
The BCAS had issued a circular on February 23 declaring doing away with the mandatory practice of putting security stamp on the hand baggage tags at seven airports with "immediate effect", despite an objection by the CISF.
Officials said it was decided to form a committee comprising senior officials from the BCAS, CISF and operators of the seven airports - Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Cochin, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad - to plug the "grey" areas at these sensitive facilities so that the possibility of any security breach can be ruled out once the procedure of stamping of tag is done away with.
"The scheme would be implemented at these airports after ratification by the committee. A similar exercise would be conducted simultaneously at the remaining 52 airports under the CISF cover for recommending modifications in the security architecture and CCTV systems so that this scheme could be implemented there as well," a statement from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) said.
Explaining the CISF's logic to get smart gadgets installed first, a senior official said, "It was important to bolster the security system at the airports to a level which was being achieved by the stamping of the hand baggage tags.
"The stamp tags help to establish at what level a possible oversight in security could have happened...the security agencies want this to be achieved by sophisticated gadgetry," he said.
During the meeting, also attended by the CISF DG O P Singh and Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey, the CISF reiterated that it needs High Definition (HD) multi-angle CCTV cameras in security hold areas, standby cameras with power backup facility, video analytics in CCTV and physical barriers by way of deploying acrylic sheets at X-ray baggage clearing levels so that the personnel who clears a bag could be "easily identified for the purpose of fixing accountability", officials said.
Responding to the decision of continuing with the stamping of bags, Rijiju tweeted: "No final decision is taken yet. A committee will visit 59 airports across the country. Will take a final call after the report is complete."
