The Airport Authority of India (AAI) has received approval from the Public Investment Board (PIB) to install full-body scanners, which will decrease passenger frisking time in half. These full-body scanners will be placed at four airports around the country, including Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, and Goa.
In July, the government floated a tender to procure 131 full-body scanners, which would reduce the average passenger frisking time to 15 seconds from the current 30 seconds, and 600 new hand baggage scanners at airports run by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for more than Rs 1,000 crore, but it was later withdrawn due to PIB clearance.
Given that all the investment plans with an estimated cost of Rs 500 crores and more fall under the purview of PIB, the initial proposal was to install 131 full-body scanners and 600 new hand-baggage scanner machines at 43 airports that include Amritsar, Goa, Srinagar, Jammu, Leh, Varanasi, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Raipur, Tirupati, Bhopal, among others at over Rs 1,000 crore at airports run by the AAI.
However, in a recent meeting between stakeholders involved in the safety and security of airports, it was decided that instead of going for the installation in one go as per the original plan, the PIB gave its nod for the installation of full-body scanners in the four airports that witness maximum footfall among all airports owned and managed by the Airport Authority of India (AAI). The meeting was attended by senior officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Bureau of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Home Affairs and others.
