Body scanners to replace conventional metal detectors at Mumbai Airport

The GVK group-AAI promoted Mumbai airport is set to replace existing door frame metal detectors and hand-held scanners with full body scanners for better security.

The scanners will also seemingly put a stop to pat-down searches of the passengers to detect metallic objects.

According to a public notice, Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL), the joint venture company that runs the country’s second busiest airport after Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, has called for expression of interest (EoI) from original equipment makers for its supply.

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 and creates 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. 56 others are categorized as ‘sensitive’.

The security of 61 airports is managed by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).