The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : AAI lacks security staff to guard its airstrips

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 24, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

AAI lacks security staff to guard its airstrips

P. Oppili

CHENNAI: Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials are concerned about non-allotment of persons from the Directorate General Resettlement (DGR) to man AAI-owned airstrips in the southern region.

A senior AAI official said that following the terror attack in Mumbai last year, the Civil Aviation Ministry had written to all airport directors, warning of possible misuse by terrorists of unmanned/abandoned airstrips belonging to military, AAI, State governments and private parties.

At present, the AAI airstrips are manned by three security personnel, who work in shifts.

If one of them goes on leave, the other two work without a break.

Following the order from the Civil Aviation Ministry, the authorities decided to increase the security to 15 persons per airport. For this the AAI has to recruit people through the DGR.

Letter sent

The official said the AAI had sent a letter more than a month ago to the DGR to allocate men for increasing the security to the airstrips. But, the DGR had not responded till now.

There are five AAI airstrips in the southern region–Cuddappah, Hassan, Mysore, Vellore and Warangal.

The officer said the AAI could not recruit persons on its own as it had stopped recruitment since 2005.

The DGR is an inter-service organisation functioning directly under the Ministry of Defence.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu