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The Civil Aviation Ministry has approved the action plan to decongest Delhi airport's domestic terminal (1D) following complaints of overcrowding during rush hours.
The plan prepared by Delhi International Airport Limited includes effective utilisation of check-in space, creation of additional boarding gates, increased deployment of Central Industrial Security Force and extra frisking counters and x-ray machines.
The plan was approved following a review of terminal facilities by civil aviation secretary R N Choubey.
The airport, busiest in the country, handled 41 million passengers in 2014-15. About 26 million were handled at the T3 terminal and the rest at T1. While T3 is designed for a capapcity of 34 million annually, T1 can handle 16 million. The latter, used by IndiGo, GoAir and SpiceJet, is reaching saturation point. T1D is used for departures and T1C is used for arrivals.
The civil aviation secretary during the meeting emphasised for better co-ordination among all stakeholders including government agencies to provide a passenger friendly environment at the airport, government press release said.
As part of the plan, airlines have been asked to utilise all available check-in counters to ease congestion. At present airlines are utilising only 58 check-in counters against the 96 available to them, which is leading to longer queues. Also, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) has increased the number of x-ray machines by two to 18 besides increasing number of frisking booths to 36 from 32.
To reduce the waiting time at the security screening, CISF will deploy additional manpower by September 15 at all such machines and frisking booths, it said. DIAL will also increase the width of the terminal entry gate, which would enable deployment of two CISF personnel at each gate against one personnel at present. Besides, DIAL will start trials for self-bag drop machines by October 1, it said adding the airport operator will also use specialised trays to facilitate speedy screening of hand baggage. To improve passenger convenience at boarding gate, DIAL will increase the area to 3,574 square metres from the current 1,787 square metres and the number of boarding gates to 20 from 16 at present. Also, inter terminal transfer on airside will be made operational by September 15 as part of the terminal de-congestion plan, the release added.
