No security stamp on hand baggage tag at seven airports

Authorities scrapped earlier system following successful trial runs

Civil aviation ministry on Thursday decided to do away with security stamp on hand baggage tags at seven airports but CISF officials say the force may not be able to undertake the directive on an immediate basis. CISF is Central Industrial Security Force.

The seven airports are those at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Cochin.

Civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said, "We expect considerable improvement in security check time and passenger experience with this change.” 

"A trial run was conducted by the CISF at a few airports to see if hand baggage tags could be done away with. The trial was found to be successful but a feedback was drawn which required deployment of requisite security gadgets, CCTVs, and smart cameras in airports terminal before such an initiative can take off.

"Such infrastructure deployment is not yet complete at many airports, including some large ones," a senior CISF official said.

Last year, the authorities had started a trial run to do away with security stamp on hand baggage tags at these seven airports.

The civil aviation ministry said it is pertinent to mention the trial run has already been successfully conducted in two phases.