737- cr pending dues: CISF to look into DIAL accounts `

With security fees amounting to 737 crore pending, the CISF might soon “look into the accounts” of the Delhi airport operator, DIAL, to find out why the dues were not paid to it, a top official said on Friday.

The Central Industrial Security Force ( CISF) is the government- mandated paramilitary force that guards 59 civil airports across the country and charges a security fee in lieu of protecting these facilities against terror and sabotage threats.

A top official of the force said more than 750 crore security fee dues were pending with various airport operators, of which an amount of about 737 crore was pending with Delhi International Airport Limited ( DIAL) that operated the Indira Gandhi International Airport ( IGI) in Delhi.

“We have also suggested that we would like to sort of look into their ( DIAL) accounts and find out exactly how much is earned through passenger security fee ( PSF) vis- a- vis the deployment charges they are bound to pay ( to the CISF). That is a work in progress,” CISF additional general ( airport sector) M. A. Ganapathy said.

The ADG said the suggestion to look into the records of DIAL and resolve the long- pending issue has come from the Union ministry of civil aviation.

He added that the force could only “persuade for realising the dues with the two ministries, the civil aviation ministry and the home ministry, to whom it reported.

“We can only take it ( the pending dues issue) up since we don’t have any coercive power to ensure that the payment is made. We can only take up the matter through the ministries,” Mr Ganapathy said.

The PSF is levied on travellers using the Delhi airport and the fund collected this way is used to pay the CISF for its security duties.

The officer said while the total dues from all the airports “has touched” nearly 750 crore, the amount pending against DIAL was 737 crore.

The ADG added that the CISF personnel now only carried out a visual profiling and regular checks of differently- abled air travellers, as compared to the earlier practice of asking them to remove their prosthetics and get up from their wheelchairs for screening.

Only in a select cases, do the CISF personnel go in for further checks and screening of differentlyabled passengers through an explosive detector, Mr Ganapathy said.

Talking about the manpower issues at the airports, Mr Ganapathy said that a strength augmentation proposal was pending before the Union home ministry.

“There is a shortage of manpower of the force at the Delhi airport and other airports. Once we get it ( the desired manpower), we will be able to do our job even better,” he added.

“Right now, yes, it ( the schedule of the personnel) is tight and the shifts have to be extended. In short, it is not an ideal situation. But despite this situation, we are managing things well,” the senior CISF officer said.