Friday, June 21, 2019

Fake ticket problem at airport due to lack of scanners

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:21.06.2019

The city airport may have been classified a sensitive zone in terms of security risk, but the facility is yet to get barcode scanners for Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel to check if a passenger allowed into the terminal is holding a genuine ticket or not.

On Wednesday, a Taiwanese man entered the international departure terminal using a fake ticket to see off a colleague. This is the second incident in a year. However, reports say that there were around 100 such cases across major airports last year.

In a bid to prevent visitors from entering terminals, CISF personnel checks tickets and ID card of passengers before allowing them inside for check-in.

However, there is no way for the CISF constable to find out if the ticket shown is genuine. And bags of passengers are not scanned at the gate. This means that the absence of a barcode scanner at the gate could lead to serious security risks, say senior officials. The exercise is also leading to congestion and queues during peak hours at the gates.

A CISF official said bar-code scanners might take longer to be implemented. "The pilot project is going on in Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports. Once it is perfected it will be introduced here. But we may have to continue with the current arrangement till DigiYatra scheme is implemented."

The ministry is working on DigiYatra scheme by which all passengers are encouraged to register their biometric details on the portal after which they can walk in by scanning their biometrics and barcodes on mobile phones.

"Once DigiYatra is implemented, there will be kiosks at the gates for passengers to scan their biometrics. CISF will merely profile the passengers. Until it is implemented, we will do random checks to find out passengers moving around inside the terminal. There is a baggage scanner also near the gate where bags of suspicious passengers will be scanned. We have to screen passengers at the gates, otherwise, visitors will crowd the terminal. Its a peculiar situation in India," he added.

Air Passengers Association of India (APAI) national president D Sudhakara Reddy said, “We have raised the issue with the ministry. It is not possible to do away with the screening like in foreign airports. But there has to be a system to check if genuine passengers are entering the airport."



SAFETY AT RISK

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