Civil Aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday said that it was high time to restrict certain parts such as the baggage area to a specific set of baggage holders, as the government was issuing maximum airport Aviation Entry permits.
The minister was at the launch of the biometric based Aviation Permits.
Currently around 2 lakh employees of various stakeholders – airlines, ground handling agencies, food chain operators etc, who move in and out of the airport on a daily basis, have AEP passes.
Covering 43 airports of AAI and five joint venture airports at present, the biometric enabled Centralised Access Control System has been issuing laminated paper based AEPs at 43 airports.
The minister said, “I am not saying that tourist operators should be stopped, but then how many among them do you want at the airport to be?”
“I think we should in subsequent phase, start looking at some areas of the airport- especially where the baggage handling and other things are done. It should not be open to anybody walking in,” he added.
Puri also launched the e-BCAS project: Training Module aimed at helping about 1.5 lakh employees of various stakeholders by migrating from manual process of training to the digital platform.
