This was conveyed by the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) at a meeting convened by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
"They informed us about the steps being taken to ease congestion. ... There is a difference between expanding an existing airport and building a greenfield one. At the existing airports, various systems in place are disrupted due to the expansion work. That is what is happening here," Ahluwalia said after the meeting in which DIAL made a presentation on the works being carried out.
He said government would have to look into two areas - the staffing of security as well as of immigration. "Government has to look into these areas. We will report back to the government".
He said "by June-end, there should be significant improvement and in the next six months, more steps will be taken. So, before the winter this year, the problem of congestion is likely to end".
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DIAL Managing Director Kiran Kumar Grandhi said "we need manpower support for security and immigration as we are handling 24 million passengers (annually) compared with a capacity of 12 million".
Giving details, he said the DIAL was "making various improvements" including commissioning the third runway by August, six months before the schedule of February next year.
Maintaining that hi-tech equipment and systems were being put in place, Grandhi said the international terminal (Terminal-2) would be refurbished by July and the new domestic terminal would be completed by November this year.
"We are also upgrading the Haj Terminal by October, soon after which the Haj operations will begin. After Haj, we will use this terminal for international operations from January 2009," he said.
The new Terminal-3, which would be an integrated terminal with a handling capacity of 34 million passengers, would come up only by 2010. Among the equipments being positioned at the airport are six inline baggage check systems. While one of these has already been put in place, the remaining ones would be positioned by June.
This would ease the massive overcrowding at the manual x-ray machines now in place at the airport. These machines would be replaced once the inline baggage systems are in place.
The number of immigration counters are also being increased from 28 to 56 and check-in counters from 78 to 100. New parking lots and entry and exit points for vehicles were also being constructed. Grandhi too expressed hope that before the winter season, the congestion problem would ease to a great extent.
There has been an almost 29 per cent growth in passenger traffic last year. At present, the international terminal has a capacity of five million passengers but handles eight million.