From requesting their armed men to frisk with a smile, to increasing the number of women officers at airports to making efforts at reducing the waiting time at security hold area and making lost and found services better — the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has been flooded with suggestions following a recent survey that the force conducted at eight major airports.

The CISF claimed that 95.58 per cent of more than 3 lakh passengers rated their services as very satisfactory but the time-consuming security mandates remained a major concern for the flyers.

The survey was conducted at Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, and Delhi from October 1-30. Senior officers said the survey was aimed at getting feedback directly from the passengers about the quality of services being rendered by the CISF and to assess the performance of the Airport Security Group personnel.

Passengers were asked to grade their experiences on a scale of 5 (excellent/very good/good/average/unsatisfactory) on four parameters — feeling of being safe, waiting time during security inspection, thoroughness of security inspection and the courtesy with attitude to help.

CISF Director General OP Singh said 3.30 lakh forms were filled by passengers during the survey. "As many as 81.72 per cent passengers graded the performance of CISF as excellent, 13.86 per cent graded it as very good, 3.48 per cent good, 0.75 per cent average and 0.19 per cent rated it unsatisfactory. Thus, 95.58 per cent of 330,152 passengers rated CISF as excellent or very good on all four parameters, while only 0.94 per cent of all passengers rated it average or unsatisfactory. This rating has been given on only one or two parameters, such as waiting time in security inspection, and courtesy and attitude to help," the DG said.

Singh also said the force has received interesting suggestions, including asking the armed men to smile while frisking and being polite. Also, it was suggested, largely by women, that the airport needed to have more women personnel to frisk women flyers.

Some passengers also asked the CISF to make efforts to reduce the waiting time during security checks at the SHA, which at present is nearly 90 seconds. Singh said efforts are being made in this direction and all feedback is being considered.