Airports plan urges fewer troops

Proposal talks about substituting CISF personnel with high-end surveillance technology

Anew proposal to bolster security at country’s major civil airports by “rationalising” about 3,000 CISF personnel and substituting them with high-end surveillance technology is being reviewed by the government for possible implementation, official sources said yesterday.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) here has prepared a voluminous blueprint on reducing the number of security personnel in a clutch of “non-sensitive duties” at airports and use them for other important security tasks.

The proposal, after review by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, has now been sent to the Union Home Ministry for final deliberations and approval.

‘Need of the hour’

The concept paper of the plan talks about “rationalising” and “reducing” the security personnel from non-sensitive duties like manning unused transit gates at airports, passenger queue management, manning air traffic control (ATC) gates and similar administrative tasks.

“The proposal talks about reducing about 3,000 CISF security personnel from airport security duties, out of the total about 27,000, and they will be replaced by smart and analytical gadgetry, CCTV cameras and other surveillance tools,” a senior home ministry official, privy to the contents of the proposal, said.

Such processes, with the aid of smart security gadgets, are deployed for aviation security across the globe, the official said. Smart surveillance systems, he said, are the need of the hour at Indian airports, given their vulnerability against terror threats.

The official said the CISF conducted a full ground survey, at all the 59 civil airports it guards, for preparing the proposal.