Flying abroad? Some light at last in the airport black holes

Friendly and professional Immigration officers, some even hired on contract, new hardware and new software that can pull up your passport an...

Friendly and professional Immigration officers, some even hired on contract, new hardware and new software that can pull up your passport and visa details faster, disembarkation cards that get stapled onto the passport and need to be just turned in while leaving, no need to stand in lines until your legs start hurting.

These winds of reform are set to sweep through the musty international airports across the country—beginning with Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad—with the Home Ministry deciding to take over immigration control from the Intelligence Bureau.

Existing Immigration staff will soon be sent for a training in public relations—currently on at Bangalore airport. And ‘‘traveller-friendly’’ officers will be recruited either from other services or through direct entries on contract basis.

Sources said this exercise to reduce the travails of international air passengers began on February 22 this year after a note to relieve the IB from Immigration duty was initiated by Home Secretary Anil Baijal. It was subsequently approved by Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and now the Ministry of Personnel has been asked to provide officer-level staff from other services.

The Home Ministry has now asked Director General of Civil Aviation to prepare standardised disembarkation cards that will reduce the time at Immigration for visiting international travellers. Essentially, this will entail that passengers will have to fill up the immigration card only once when they enter India. This will be a small slip that will then be stapled to the passport. On their way out of India, all visitors have to do is to hand over the slip.

	Easier entry, exit

	• Visitors will get standardised disembarkation cards to reduce their time at immigration when they fly out • More professional staff • New hardware and high speed cables for faster access to immigration data to be installed at Bangalore (May 15); Hyderabad (May 30) and Delhi (June 15).

. A detailed plan has also been chalked up to increase connectivity at airports so that Immigration officials can access passengers’ documents much faster. This will be implemented at Delhi airport and 17 other cities this year itself. As a first step, hardware upgradation and cable laying for faster communications will begin at Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore this month. It will be installed at Bangalore by May 15, Hyderabad by May 30 and Delhi by June 15.

The National Informatics Centre is to develop an upgraded software (costing Rs 21.5 lakh) that will reduce passenger time by almost a minute and a half. The pilot project will become functional in Delhi by July 1.