Chamber of Trade and Industry writes to Scindia on concerns over Delhi airport rush

New Delhi [India], December 16 (ANI): The Chamber of Trade and Industry (CTI) has written a letter to Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia apprising him about how business activities in Delhi are getting affected due to passengers who are getting stuck in queues for hours at the Delhi airport.

While registering concerns, the trade association's Chairman Brijesh Goyal, in the letter sent on Friday, said various big exhibitions, fairs, business seminars, deals, tours and different types of business programs take in the national capital.

"For these, people from different parts of the country come to Delhi in the morning by flight and return in the evening. Now if the businessmen are stuck at the airport for 3 to 4 hours, then the very purpose of coming to Delhi will be futile," the letter in Hindi read.

"For a flight of 45 minutes to 1.30 hours, one has to wait for 4-5 hours. Cities like Chandigarh, Dehradun and Jaipur can be reached faster by car than by air," it added.

Brijesh Goyal has demanded an increase in entry gates, and security checkpoints, besides waiting display boards to be installed at the airport.

Through the letter, he also complained that the DigiYatra system that was installed too at the airport is "not working properly".

For a seamless and hassle-free air travel experience, the government recently launched Digi Yatra in three airports - Delhi, Varanasi, and Bengaluru.

Digi Yatra is conceived to achieve contactless, seamless processing of passengers at airports based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). The project basically envisages that travellers may pass through various checkpoints at the airports through paperless and contactless processing using facial features to establish their identity which could be linked to the boarding pass.

Coming back to the congestion at Delhi airport, Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla held a high-level meeting on Thursday. A senior officer informed that the meeting was primarily held on the immigration process and infrastructure of airports.
The meeting was held considering the complaints on social media by irate passengers about missed flights and serpentine pre-boarding lines at India's busiest airport in Delhi.
The pictures posted on social media platforms showed overcrowding at Delhi International Airport. There were reports of passengers grumbling about long waits for security checks and mismanagement by the airport staff.
Civil aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia also visited one of the terminals earlier this week and said that he will look into concerns around the management of security checks. The minister has ordered airport officials to resolve the issues on priority. (ANI)