India’s Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has announced that it will do away with stamping hand baggage tags during security scan, post check-in. This elimination will initially launch on December 15 as a pilot project at six domestic airports in Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.
CISF is a “multi-skilled security agency of the country, mandated to provide security to major critical infrastructure installations of the country in diverse areas”.
Currently, at the time of check-in, passengers collect tags for their hand baggage from airlines. Before boarding, security procedures mandate they pass the hand bag through a scanning machine while they’re frisked by a security personnel. Once cleared, their boarding passes are stamped by the personnel, and they can collect their hand bag only if they have been given security clearance as a stamp on the baggage tag. This means, that even if you see your bag, you must wait until a guard gives it a clearance stamp.
On being asked by Business Traveller India if eliminating the stamping process would help save time, the CISF source said, “There are two ways to see this. The first is that stamping [the baggage tag] doesn’t take time. But because it is not being done world over, let’s try something new. The second is that the time it takes to get out of the frisking box, the bag is already out of the scanner. Passengers don’t have to wait for it (tag) to be stamped. They can simply lift it off the belt and proceed towards boarding.”
If the pilot project runs smoothly, CISF will implement this at other airports too. The duration of the trial period hasn’t been specified yet.
