Nearly 70 per cent hoax calls get traced: Official

With hoax calls disrupting flight operations in airports, particularly the IGI airport here, a top Civil Aviation Ministry official today said nearly two thirds of such calls get traced and the offence attracts a five-year incarceration.
Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey also said the ministry is working on revamping rules relating to entry passes so that the system does not pose any security risk at airports.
"Nearly 70 per cent of the hoax calls gets traced and punishment is five years of imprisonment. So it is not as if the hoax calls go undetected," he said here.
His comments come in the backdrop of a large number of hoax calls made to airports across the country recently.

Pointing out that the trend of making hoax calls has now shifted from landlines to voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), Choubey said, "We have a technical solution to identifying and locating who has made those calls and the deterrence is very very strong."
He said agencies capable of monitoring hoax calls from VoIPs are already monitoring it.

On greater involvement of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) in the intelligence set up and architecture, Choubey said it must be appreciated that BCAS receives all inputs related to intelligence.
"That is what matters. There is a certain security architecture that is there which shows that BCAS remains the beneficiary of all security input which is being generated and received. Please don't think that BCAS is not receiving intelligence input," he said.

On airport entry passes, he said, "We are looking to rationalise the system for issuing the passes. The idea is to ensure the passes do not become a major security issue."
"Depending on situations, we change the security system. Whenever there is threat perception," he said, adding Centre would bring in a system for checks at the entry gate.
He, however, did not divulge details on the issue.
Choubey also said the government plans to increase the number of passes to certain class of people such as officials and might reduce number of passes to certain other categories.
On the issue of frequent citing of aerial vehicles around the Indira Gandhi International Airport here, he said the government already has standard operating procedures for handling any such unidentified objects in any airport.

"Whenever we have such a perception, we take appropriate action. We have a very very strong architecture in place to deal with all such citings," he said.
Sounding optimistic on getting a new chief for the BCAS soon, which is lying headless since 2012, the official said "that post will be filled up within this month of April.