NEW DELHI: In an unprecedented move, India’s private airport operators have warned that “considerable time being taken in processing security vetting” is “impacting project implementation schedules, achieving operational efficiencies, commercial preparedness, and ensuring passenger convenience.” The Association of Private Airport Operators (APAO), which represents the 14 PPP airports in India including those in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and represents a lion’s share of air traffic in the country, has written to aviation secretary Samir Sinha on the need for “timely approvals” Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS). APAO has sent to Sinha a list of projects’ along with the time it took for them to get BCAS clearance, which ranges from a week to 802 days. The longest time (802 days) has been taken for approving “creation of central kitchen at T2” Bengaluru. Nod for a “new casualty centre facility at T1 CSMIA (Mumbai)” took 664 days; Kochi airport’s “interim floor plan vetting” took 635 days; clearing alternate location for isolation bay at Delhi’s IGIA took 578 days; the nod for IGIA T3 pier C’s conversion from domestic to international took 448 days and “terminal building plan phase 1 of Navin Mumbai Airport” took 340 days.Comments were sought from the aviation ministry on the APAO mail and awaited till the time of going to press. BCAS is an “attached organisation” of the ministry.Operators of these 14 airports – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kochi, Delhi, Goa (Mopa), Hyderabad, Guwahati, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mangalore, Mumbai CSMIA, Navi Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram and Greater Noida – have requested the ministry to “establish turnaround timelines for different proposal categories to facilitate faster processing of proposals critical for operational continuity and passenger service enhancement.” The operators include the Adani Group, GMR and other private players.A former senior official of BCAS said both the operators and the authority were equally to blame for delay in big projects. “Bigger proposals have to e examined in totality from security aspect and we seek clarifications from them regarding the same which are often slow to come by. Then there is too much commercialisation at newer terminals and security is very often not the key consideration while designing those layouts. Then background checks of personnel means sending the same to IB. How long it takes there is beyond us. Most bigger proposals have foreigners as partners, so that takes even longer.”However, the former official admitted that clearance for smaller things, like say a shop, should come faster and that is where BCAS can speed up. “That’s why there is an e-portal where applicants can check the status of their application and see if it is stuck, why so and provide the required inputs. On smaller proposals, BCAS can do better.”The mail written by APAO secretary-general Satyan Nayar says: “….considerable time being taken in processing security vetting approvals for various infrastructure, operational, and reconfiguration proposals submitted by APAO member airports. As airports continue to witness significant passenger and cargo growth, utmost important to undertake timely capacity enhancements, improve passenger facilitation, ensure operational optimization, and augment security infrastructure projects.”“For all this to happen, timely approvals from BCAS becomes highly critical for ensuring smooth execution of these activities and achieve operational readiness. However, it has been observed that a significant number of proposals across member airports are experiencing prolonged timelines at various stages of security vetting approvals.” “In several cases, approvals pertaining to the design stage, final stage and floor plan stages have remained under process for extended durations, thereby impacting project implementation schedules, achieving operational efficiencies, commercial preparedness, and ensuring passenger convenience,” the mail adds.
Some examples of how it took to get BCAS nod:
- The longest wait. 802 days: Central kitchen at Bengaluru T2
- 664 days: New casualty centre at T1, Mumbai
- 635 days: Interim floor plan vetting at T1, Kochi
- 448 days: Converting Delhi Airport T1 Pier C from domestic to international
- 340 days: Terminal building plan phase-I, Navi Mumbai
- The fastest nod. 7 days: Strengthening perimeter wall at IGIA
(Source: APAO letter)
