BCAS ratifies major airport security initiative
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The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has issued new guidelines which will see various security precautions enforced at airports across the country.
All airlines will be required to format e-tickets in the same way. The decision to have a uniform e-ticket format was finalised recently in order to help security officials at airports verify passengers and flight details. BCAS has also directed the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to start random screening of baggage, check vehicles and frisk visitors outside arrival and departure terminals. Moreover, visitors without a valid air ticket will not be allowed to carry hand luggage into the terminals. The new security measures, while fierce and inconvenient, have been introduced in response to the Moscow Airport bombing back in January, and officials in India are taking steps to ensure the same does not happen here.
The government will soon be issuing a standard format for e-tickets to make it easier for the security personnel to verify passenger and flight details. The decision to have a uniform e-ticket format for all the airlines is a part of the latest guidelines finalised by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) for tighter aviation security. After surveying the different airlines ticketing info, it was realised that vital security information was located at different points on the page. In order to speed up the process and cut down passenger delays, a uniform layout will be introduced.
The CISF has already installed and trialled x-ray machines outside terminals at Lucknow, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad airports where they have been screening baggage before passengers enter the building. However this is not a blanket policy. Instead passengers will be selected to have their baggage checked if their behaviour is deemed suspicious. “The purpose is to create a deterrent for terrorists that may be plotting to hit at the entrance to the airports, which at a peak hours may have a 500-strong crowd,” a senior CISF official told the Economic Times. Though the system is still being trialled, it will soon be deployed at 58 other airports around India.
Security forces will also be checking vehicles and frisking passengers on the approach to airports. BCAS members have also ratified plans to deploy dog squads at all the airports, starting with metro centres like Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
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