New Delhi: India is looking to ease immigration and cargo screening rules to make its airports as competitive as global flying hubs such as Dubai and Singapore. The move comes at a time when IndiGo and the Air India group are seeking to expand their networks beyond home.
According to informed sources, the ministry of civil aviation has started talks with the home ministry to eliminate rescreening for passengers taking a flight to and from international destinations and rescreening of their luggage and to remove the protocol of rescreening of transshipment cargo.
For instance, currently, passengers travelling from Bengaluru to San Francisco with a layover at Delhi must have their immigration check procedures at Delhi. Similarly, for passengers travelling from San Francisco to Bengaluru via Delhi, the travellers must complete their customs and immigration formalities at Delhi airport, and then check in again for the next leg of the journey to Bengaluru.
“This needs a lot of time and hence impacts efficient operations of the airline. Also, the connecting experience for domestic passengers taking international flights is not on a par with foreign airports,” said a government official. “Hence, the government is considering the proposal where a passenger will not need to do this at intermediary points but at their first or final destinations.”
Similarly, the Centre is looking to relax the current policy of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) under which transshipment cargo must be checked by customs.
The current process increases the dwelling time, making Indian airports uncompetitive.
Transshipment is the process of unloading cargo from one mode of transportation and reloading it onto another during its journey to its final destination. This can include moving cargo from one aircraft to another, or from one mode of transportation to another, such as air, road, or rail.
“For instance, cargo from Bangladesh reaches Delhi via the Indo-Bangla border at Benapole-Petrapole. At the Petrapole border, the cargo has to go through all security checks. But when it arrives at the Delhi Airport, instead of it being directly transferred to the aircraft, it has to again undergo checks and verification of customs, increasing the turnaround time,” an airline official said.
