Civil Aviation Ministry extends validity of regular AEPs till

In a relief to airlines and airport operators, Civil Aviation Ministry has extended the validity of the regular Aerodrome Entry Passes (AEP) by three months to March next year, amid the process of rolling out of biometric access control system (BACS)at 48 airports in the country.
As part of the regulations, airline and airport executives, and others working there have to get their AEPs renewed annually.
"Validity of all regular aerodrome entry passes (AEP) except for temporary AEPs and AEPs issued to the ground handling agents, which are expiring on December 31, 2016, has been extended up to March 31, 2017 without any endorsement in the existing AEPs," the Ministry said in its communication to all regional directors at BCAS.

Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), which is the apex aviation security body, has the mandate to issue all categories of AEPs to the airlines and airports employees.
BCAS has regional offices at eight locations-Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Amritsar and Hyderabad.
Temporary AEPs and AEPs issued to the bonafide employees of all ground handling agencies shall be dealt with the existing guidelines and instructions issued by the BCAS headquarters from time to time, it said.

As part of efforts to strengthen the overall security framework at airports amid rising threat perception for the aviation sector, AAI is putting in such access control systems at the airports.

It has recently awarded more than Rs 110 crore worth contract to the public sector firm Broadcasting Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL) for providing biometric-based access control systems at 43 airports.
AAI manages 125 airports, including 11 international and 81 domestic aerodromes. Five airports -- at Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Nagpur -- are run by joint ventures.
All the JV airports are also in the final phase of awarding contracts for BACS.
Once the BACS is in place, then the employees would also be provide.