Mumbai airport may soon replace door frame metal detectors with body scanners

GVK group-AAI promoted Mumbai airport may soon install body scanners, replacing the existing door frame metal detectors and hand-held scanners besides pat-down searches of the passengers to detect metallic objects. Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL), the joint venture company, which run the country's second busiest airport after Indira Gandhi International Airport of Delhi, has called for expression of interest (EoI) from original equipment makers for its supply, as per public notice.

The move comes following the civil aviation ministry's reportedly recent directives to operators of all hypersensitive airports to install the body scanners by March 2020. "Mumbai International Airport invites manufacturers for the supply of body scanner as per an April circular of the Bureau of civil aviation security (BCAS)," MIAL said in the public notice Friday.

The interested parties have been asked to submit initial bids within seven days of the publishing of the notice. The BCAS has also reportedly finalised the specifications of the body scanners, which will red flag any suspicious metallic and non-metallic items concealed on the body. The scanners are based on millimetre wave technology comprising non-ionising electromagnetic radiation.

The millimeter wave-technology-based scanner addresses the privacy concern as it does not outline the body contours, but only generates a generic image. Of the 105 operational airports in the country at present, 28 are classified as hypersensitive, including those in big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and in conflict areas like Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast while 56 airports are categorized as sensitive. The security of 61 airports is managed by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).

(With inputs from agencies.)