As many as 59 airports are facing shortage of CISF personnel and require 1,506 more to meet the total sanctioned strength of over 24,000, with Delhi and Mumbai airports accounting for almost one-third of the total shortfall.
As against the sanctioned strength of 24,333 CISF personnel at these 59 airports, the number of those deployed stood at 22,827 as on March 31 this year, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.
The shortage in CISF personnel was highest at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, where a total of 4,384 personnel were deployed as against 4,684 sanctioned while Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport had 190 CISF personnel less than the 3,996 sanctioned staff, according to the data.
Notably, Delhi and Mumbai airports reported 41 million and 36.6 million passengers, respectively, in the 2014-15 fiscal.
Other airports like Kolkata, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Bangalore too had shortage of CISF personnel, Sharma said.
"The deployment is done by CISF after due process by Ministry of Home Affairs, based on various factors including availability of personnel and demand in various sectors," he said, adding, at present 59 airports are being manned by CISF.
According to a Parliamentary panel's report last year, of the 98 operational airports in India, 26 are categorised as 'hyper-sensitive'. Of these, 18 are under CISF security cover. Of 56 airports categorised as 'sensitive', 37 have CISF deployment.
Another 16 are normal category airports with four of them being under the CISF cover.
"Ministry of Civil Aviation is regularly reviewing the deployment with Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, CISF, airport operators and MHA," he said.
