Lucknow, five other airports to do away with handbag stamping from June 1

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on Monday issued an order of doing away with stamping hand baggage tags with immediate effect at six major airports- Lucknow, Guwahati, Patna, Trivandrum, Jaipur and Chennai from June 1.

The CISF took the decision after a week-long trial in April.

Earlier, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) issued an order of doing away with stamping hand bag tags at seven major airports- Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Cochin.

The government, however, withdrew the decision later on, after security agencies raised concerns.

A joint meeting was attended by Minister of Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home Affairs Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation R.N. Choubey, Secretary Civil Aviation O. P. Singh, Director General CISF, Dharmendra Kumar, Additional Director General Airport Sector/CISF and senior officers of MHA, Minister of Civil Aviation (MoCA) and BCAS at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan to discuss the modalities of implementation of this order.

"It was decided that committees comprising of BCAS, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Airport Operators would examine the security architecture & CCTV systems of these seven airports notified by BCAS and assess their suitability for doing away with the baggage tags as suggested by CISF earlier," Deputy Commandant Manjit Singh said.

"The scheme would be implemented at these airports after ratification by these committees. A similar exercise would be conducted simultaneously at the remaining 52 airports under CISF cover for recommending modifications in the security architecture & CCTV systems so that this scheme could be implemented at those airports as well," he added.

The BCAS and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) had carried out non-stamping exercise at several airports for domestic flyers last year.