Soon, flyers from Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad will have one less task to complete before taking flight. Airports in these three cities will soon start testing a new scanning technology that will save passengers from the hassle of taking out laptops and electronic gadgets for screening before boarding an aircraft.
According to a TOI report, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has given its approval to start 3D-based computed tomography (CT) scanner at Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad airports on a pilot basis. With this, India will join the selected list of counties like the US, UK, Netherlands and Israel who use this technology for passenger baggage screening.
At present, passengers in the country are required to take out their laptops and other electronic gadgets from their cabin baggage and place them separately in the x-ray scanner at the time of security frisking. No Indian airport has 3D CT scanners and the screening of in-flight bags is done using x-ray scanning machines.
Such a scanner will save the effort put in by CISF personnel for screening and it will subsequently allow them in better profiling a suspicious passenger as time would be saved in separately scanning the electronic items.
This will also speed up security checks and reduce queues at large airports that handle heavy passenger traffic
The measure to procure the new gadget is part of the forces’ plan to induct smart technology that will not only facilitate quick passenger travel but also not compromise on security.
Since last year, the CISF has also initiated a project to do away with cabin baggage tags for passengers at 49 civil airports out of the 60 that the para force secures.
