Soon travellers may not have to do this while hand baggage scanning at airports

Jaideep Prasad, Joint Director General of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), on Wednesday said the regulator has proposed installing scanners based on computer tomography technology at airports that will provide a three-dimensional view of the objects in hand baggage.

“With such scanners, passengers will not be required to take out their electronic devices from hand baggage before going through the scanner,” he told PTI.

Currently, the scanners used at airports provide a two-dimensional view of the objects inside a hand baggage.

Installation of such scanners is also expected to help in speeding up the security check in process at airports.

In recent weeks, there have been complaints about congestion and long waiting hours at various airports, especially at the airport in the national capital. Authorities have put in place various measures and the congestion has eased.

According to the civil aviation ministry, some of the technologies deployed and proposed for deployment at sensitive airports include Computer Tomography Explosive Detection Systems (CT-EDS) machines and Dual Generator X-BIS machines.

“Direction has been issued for Minimum Technical specification for Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS). It has been installed at Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore airports… The Full Body Scanner at all airports is planned in a phased manner with all hypersensitive and sensitive airports on priority basis,” Minister of State for Civil Aviation V K Singh told Lok Sabha on December 8.

Deployment of Radiological Detection Equipment (RDE) at airports is also planned in a phased manner.

India is one of the fastest growing civil aviation markets globally and the country’s domestic air traffic has been more than 4 lakh passengers in recent days, and is now above the pre-pandemic level.

*With inputs from agencies