After a trial run of making seven prominent air facilities tag free on April 1, India has now included six more airports that would be doing away with bag tags. These six additional facilities will be testing the new policy until the end of the month and authorities will then decide if the policy will be continued based on the results.
According to The Economic Times, the policy has already been implemented since the beginning of the month in seven airports all over India. Air facilities located in Delhi, Cochin, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bengaluru have already stopped tagging passenger's bags.
With the success that they had in these air facilities, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), will now start a one-week trial of doing away with bag tags in the air facilities of Lucknow, Jaipur, Chennai, Guwahati, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram. The trial would end on April 30.
CISF Director General O P Singh said, "If all the security concerns are found satisfactory, we will be ushering in the new regime of non-stamping of the hand baggage tags at these six airports very soon."According to India, these six airports would have all the necessary tools and logistics so that the safety of these facilities would not be jeopardized once the bag tags are done away.
The previous method of having stamped tags on the bags of passengers was a way of ensuring that no weapons or ammunition entered the aircraft. But with the new technology being used at the air facilities such as smart cameras, the airport can now get the same results without the need for tags.
DG Sing added that the non-stamping policy would greatly improve the passengers' travel experience. However, the new protocols are only applicable for flights within the country and that the same bag-tagging policy would still apply for international flights.
