Stamping of hand baggage at seven airports to continue

The government on Thursday withdrew its decision to stop the practice of stamping hand baggage tags at major airports after security agencies raised concerns.

The order on dispensing with stamping of baggage tags at seven airports, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Cochin, was issued by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS).

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.