The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has failed to procure a single body scanner for its 100+ airports yet. According to a PTI report, the airport body was directed by the aviation security regulator BCAS in April 29 to install body scanners in over 84 airports across the country by March 2020. This would have replaced the existing door frame metal detectors followed by hand-held scanners and a full-body pat-down.
"Walk-through metal detectors and hand-held metal detectors cannot detect non-metallic weapons and explosives. Body scanners detect both metallic and non-metallic items concealed on the body," the circular of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) had said.
But this hasn’t been done until now. The AAI had followed up on the circular from BCAS by issuing a tender for which a total of three companies had put their bids in. The tender was to procure 198 body scanners for 63 airports. But the tenders were cancelled due to administrative reasons.
The airports which will receive these body scanners will be decided once the fresh tenders are rolled out.
