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New Delhi:  In order to enhance passenger comfort, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has decided to cut security checks and frisking time at the airports by almost half.

The force has prepared a four-point, new standard operating procedure for its security personnel who are deployed at the country’s 59 civil airports, to identify genuine travelling passengers and scan their baggage.

"We have decided to cut the security check time for air fliers at the airports by half. At present, our officials take 7-8 minutes to complete the frisking and identification of passengers but now we plan to cut it down by half which is about 4 minutes," Chief of CISF airport security unit O P Singh told PTI.

Mr Singh said new modules and Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) have been developed to enable the CISF security men to achieve this target.

"We have initiated a new profiling mechanism by which the security person will intelligently identify between a genuine, a fake or suspicious passenger. Once that is done, the security personnel will being trained to quickly go through three details in the air ticket which is checking the correct flight number, date, time and the valid Identity-card of the passenger," Additional Director General (CISF) Mr Singh said.

Authorities of the force are particularly driven to undertake such measures after a latest survey they conducted among passengers at the Indian airports found out that extended waiting time for security checks was troubling the maximum number of air fliers in the country.

Mr Singh said that the new security protocol have been put to test at the domestic and international terminals of the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in Delhi with success and from the coming week, the new training module will be imparted to all force personnel who are deployed under the airport security wing across the country.

"We just request the air passengers to keep a valid air ticket in hand or in case of a soft copy they should show the original ’pdf’ attachment on their smart phone to the CISF official. We will ensure that they are cleared for their flight in as less time as possible," Mr Singh said the force has also decided to help specially-abled passengers by keeping one entry point dedicated for them at the airports.

However, the step will be initiated from large airports where there is a possibility of keeping one entry gate for such passengers while at smaller air terminals the force is mulling priority clearance for such passengers from any gate.

The CISF is also in the process of putting signages just beyond the security check area, inside the terminals, which will remind the fliers to pick up their pocket items like wallet, phone, watch, keys after they had undergone frisking and also remind them of their hand baggage.
 
This would reduce the complaints of passengers forgetting their valuables at the airports, Mr Singh said.

CISF officials feel that despite introducing these measures at their end, the amount of waiting time at security checks is also dependent on the facilities provided by the airport operator to the force.

These facilities include availability of space, adequate infrastructure and entry time regulations by airlines based on the capacity of the terminals.