NEW DELHI: Airports in India face the mammoth task of screening thousands of people who fly into the country, irrespective of where they are coming from, daily, and identifying those who display symptoms of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19).DGCA data shows 78.4 lakh people flew into India between January and March 2019, an average of more than 87,000 daily in that period. After factoring in flight cancellations and the scare, Indian airports could be looking at screening about 80,000 international arrivals daily with staff of the health ministry’s Airport Health Organisation (APHO).This screening means international arrivals may need to spend 30-40 minutes more before ‘çleared’ passengers leave airports.“Those with symptoms of the coronavirus will be sent to hospitals. Airlines have been asked to give self-declaration forms to passengers before landing. The thermal screeners being used can check four passengers in a minute. One counter can check about 200 passengers in an hour,” said a senior aviation official overseeing preparedness at airports.The Airports Authority of India (AAI) says 30 airports in the country get international flights. The major chunk of international flights is handled by the six metro airports. India’s busiest airport, Delhi’s IGI Airport, witnesses anywhere from 850 to 2,100 international passengers flying every hour during lean and peak hours.“The maximum rush is from 11pm to 3am when IGI Airport sees about 6,000 international arrivals from 35 flights in these four hours,” said Delhi airport sources.The second busiest airport, Mumbai, gets about 100 international flights daily.Are the airports and APHO prepared for the mammoth — and unprecedented — task at hand? “The maximum international passenger arrival is at the metro airports and Kerala ’s four airports also see a lot of daily traffic from the Gulf. States are chipping in with doctors and other medical support staff from their hospitals, apart from APHO people. Lakhs of self-declaration forms have been printed and all airlines have been asked to pick them up so that they can in a couple of days start giving them to passengers to fill up before the plane lands. While all passengers will be screened on arrival, those with a recent history of travel to some countries will be looked at closely,” said the official.How was Day One of screening all international arrivals? On Thursday itself a passenger tweeted to aviation minister H S Puri about flying into India and leaving the airport without being screened. Puri sought details from the passenger to examine what had happened.Since the order to screen all international arrivals was issued Wednesday, all stakeholders are rushing to make arrangements. For instance, a Mumbai airport official said: “We have set up adequate health counters in pre-immigration. APHO is manning at least four screening counters (at all times) and manning will be increased based upon passenger load. APHO has stationed 65 staff (doctor and paramedics), trained professionals, in three shifts at health counters to screen passengers. Additional screening staff are coming from the state government.”Mumbai airport hopes to have “minimal delay (read more time) in the time passengers spend at the airport after landing due to adequate staff and devices provided by APHO to expedite the screening process”.Bengaluru peak international arrivals are between 2am and 4.30am with 11 flights in those hours. “The screening takes a maximum of an additional 10 minutes for passengers,” said an official.An AAI official said: “Sufficient counters have been set up for screening the passengers at all international airports as per health ministry guidelines. There is a delay in exit time due to screening of passengers for Covid-19 at airports.”Hyderabad airport gets about 5,000 international arrivals daily. “The peak hour is 2am and 7pm, for an hour each, when we get about 1,000 international arrivals in that hour each,” said an official.