NEW DELHI: Soon, domestic passengers flying out of Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi won’t need to get their boarding passes stamped “security checked”. Central Industrial Security Force ( CISF ) has written to these three airports to conduct a pilot project at the earliest. Hyderabad airport already has this system in place.

CISF’s head of airport security, M A Ganapathy, on July 18 wrote to the CEOs of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore airports (DIAL, MIAL and BIAL, respectively) to stop stamping of boarding cards of domestic flyers. A senior CISF official said MIAL “is very keen to do a pilot”. The Mumbai airport management is learnt to have approached both CISF and Bureau of Civil Aviation Security for the same.

MIAL has discussed its blueprint with security authorities, it is learnt. Sources said the pilot project is proposed to be carried out at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) Terminal 2 for domestic passengers of Air India, Jet Airways and Vistara. The pre-embarkation security check (PESC) area will have HD CCTVs to capture a clear picture of passengers as well as security personnel frisking them.

Passengers will have to scan the bar code on their boarding passes on the e-gate reader and they will get access after the details are authenticated with the airline’s database. Only one person will be allowed access at a time and the gate won’t open for international passengers.

The system proposed by CSIA will deny access if a boarding card’s unique bar code is used by someone else to enter the PESC again. Once inside, CISF personnel will frisk and clear passengers without stamping their boarding pass, which will be scanned at each stage — entering, clearing and at the boarding gate. The next gate will allow access only if the previous stages have been cleared.

Most airports in the developed world, including those with a high threat perception, do not stamp boarding cards. India is also planning to completely digitise travel experience, at least for domestic flyers as international ones need to carry their passports. Once the bar code scanning system is tested and cleared, the next stage will be showing boarding cards on personal electronic devices like smartphones or tablets and boarding domestic flights in a paperless manner.

