An internal panel of the Union Civil Aviation ministry has decided to shelve for now its earlier proposal to raise a specialised force for airport security because of the “excessive high costs” the plan would involve. Ministry officials said the panel, headed by a joint secretary-rank official, had decided to junk the proposal after consultations with the finance ministry.
The plan had been mooted in 2011, when the UPA government was in power, and there have been constant deliberations since, a senior official said. “However, at a recent meeting to discuss the proposal, it was decided that this was not the proper time yet to go ahead with the plan as it would incur huge expenses,” the official said, adding that a few years down the line the proposal could be revived. “But for now it has been scrapped.” Of the 90-odd functional civil airports in the country, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) mans 59. Other paramilitary forces or state police man the rest. The decision to shelve the proposal comes at a time the International Civil Aviation Organization, a global body, had recommended that India put in place effective safety mechanisms and set up a specialised security force in the wake of terror attacks and suicide bombings at major international airports.
An ICAO expert team is scheduled to visit India in March to assess the country’s safety preparedness at its airports. The ICAO’s role assumes significance as the US Federal Aviation Administration had downgraded India’s civil aviation sector for 15 months – between January 2014 and March 2015 – over safety oversight, based on feedback and recommendations from the global body. Civil aviation ministry officials conceded there was pressure on the government to raise safety standards at airports and added that it would try to fill the gaps by upgrading the security features and deploying more personnel wherever required.
“Some of the problems that we have assessed include lack of surveillance cameras at various spots at the airports, low fencing of boundary walls, inadequate number of watchtowers, unavailability of dog squads and counter-terrorism contingency plans,” an official in the aviation security wing said. “We are trying to ensure that gaps in these areas are taken care of before the ICAO team’s visit.”
