New Delhi, May 12 : Representatives of the Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) on Monday said the manpower crunch in core areas such as security and immigration were the main reason behind high congestion and perceived haphazard state of the Indira Gandhi International airport (IGI).

The representatives of the airport developer met deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and other government representatives at a high-level meeting over the congestion at IGI in New Delhi and squarely blamed the manpower crunch of the government agencies for the problems.

“We need around 1,400 Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel for security and around 150 immigration personnel to fill in the gaps at the airport,” a source among the representatives said. “We have asked the government to provide these over the past six months but they have not yet complied,” he added. DIAL officials, after the meeting, said by the end of June the congestion would ease significantly. DIAL will make all possible efforts to replace the manual

X-ray machines once all six in-line baggage check systems are in place and ease the massive overcrowding happening due to this. Only one such system is in place now at the domestic airport.

The number of immigration counters is also being increased from 28 to 56 and check-in counters from 78 to 100. New parking lots and entry and exit points for vehicles are also being constructed, DIAL officials told Ahluwalia during the hour-long meeting summoned by the latter.

DIAL has assured the government that the congestion at the IGI Airport here is likely to ease by June-end with new infrastructure, including a terminal and parking places, coming up.

“They informed us about the steps being taken to ease congestion. There is a difference between expanding an existing airport and building a greenfield one. At the existing airports, various systems in place are disrupted due to the expansion work. That is what is happening here,” Ahluwalia told reporters after the meeting. Ahluwalia said the government, on its part, would look into the staffing issue and try and get the concerned ministry to look into the matter immediately. “The government has to look into these areas. We will report back to the government.”

Ahluwalia is expected to write to the finance and home ministries to consider increasing the number of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and immigration personnel at the airport.

“We are handling 24 million passengers (annually) compared with an airport capacity of 12 million We need manpower support for security and immigration,” DIAL managing director Kiran Kumar Grandhi said.

Giving details, Grandhi said the third runway for A-380 would be ready by August, the refurbished international terminal would be ready by July and the new domestic terminal would be ready by November.

“We are also upgrading the Haj Terminal by October, soon after which the Haj operations will begin. After Haj, we will use this terminal for international operations from January 2009,” Grandhi said. The new Terminal-3, which would be an integrated terminal with a handling capacity of 34 million passengers, would come up only by 2010. There has been an almost 29% growth in passenger traffic last year. At present, the international terminal has a capacity of five million passengers but handles eight million.

Meanwhile, in a meeting between the secretary of the ministry of civil aviation Ashok Chawla and representatives of the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), developers of the new Greenfield international airport at Bangalore, to discuss when the airport would be allowed to open, the airport developers rejected the ministry’s suggestion to keep the existing airport open.

“There are a number of negative consequences of the existing airport remaining open and it is not possible for us to allow that,” a representative of the airport developer said. “We have a contract that is not only legally binding between us and the government of India but we also have contracts with the various concessionaires in the airport. Allowing the existing airport to remain open would make us party to a number of legal battles from the concessionaires,” he added.

Giving details of the consequences, he said if the airport remains open then it puts a question mark on the economic viability of the airport as lesser number of passengers would pass through it – our creditors would not like that. This is made worse as the existence of the HAL airport would not allow the new airport to become a hub for the area. “Another reason why we cannot allow the airport to remain open is that we have made a significant investment into the airport,” the source said. The airport will open after May 26 when the election commission can rule that it does not go against the model code of conduct. “They have been discussing the issue with all the stakeholders including the airlines and a lot of conflicting opinions have been received,” Chawla said. “We will continue to study the issue but as of now the issue is very much alive,” he added.

When asked about the controversial UDF issue, Albert Brunner, CEO of BIAL, said for the first three months they would charge Rs 1,075 from international passengers after which the ministry would approve an amount to charge. And since most of the international tickets till June end have already been bought, Brunner said that till June end they would take cash from the passengers at the airport itself.