Rs 1,405 Crore Sought For Civil Aviation Security

The working group on civil aviation for the Tenth Five Year Plan has recommended that the allocation for the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security should be raised to Rs 1,405 crore during 2002-07. This is an over 5,500 per cent increase from Rs 25 crore allocated during the Ninth Five Year Plan.

The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security is responsible for ensuring adequate security arrangements at airports. The group has suggested that the entire allocation should be provided by the government in the form of budgetary support. Of the total, Rs 1,017 crore or over 72 per cent should be allocated for purchase of security-related equipment, says the report.

In addition, it has suggested that Rs 347 crore be allocated for infrastructure and Rs 41 crore for security-related manpower expenses. Security in airline operations has assumed greater importance after the terrorist attacks on the US last year.

The group has worked out fund requirements on the basis of the projected growth in traffic in the aviation sector. While the domestic passenger traffic is expected to grow at 5 per cent per year, the international passenger traffic is expected to grow at 6 per cent every year during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period.

The domestic cargo traffic is projected to grow at 5 per cent per annum while the international cargo traffic is expected to go up by 7.5 per cent per year. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security proposes to create five new regional offices, in addition to the existing four at the metro international airports.

It is also slated to gradually automate the access control of airport areas through IT-enabled smart-card system. Initially, the system will be introduced in the Delhi airport as a pilot project.

Installation of additional security equipment and systems at 14 hyper-sensitive and 33 sensitive airports is also on the agenda. It includes the bio-metric passenger profiling system to be introduced at a cost of Rs 700 crore. A civil aviation training academy is also proposed to be set up in Bangalore at a cost of Rs 150 crore.