KIA to get extra 1,700 CISF personnel

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A fresh deployment of about 1,700 CISF personnel has been cleared by the central government for providing antiterror cover to the recently expanded Bengaluru international airport, officials said here on Sunday.

This will be in addition to the 3,500 men and women personnel of the paramilitary force already deployed at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in the Karnataka capital, they said. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at the airport's Terminal-1 is engaged in frisking passengers, scanning their cabin luggage and providing a comprehensive armed antihijack and counter-terrorist cover, the officials said.

The Union Home Ministry recently sanctioned fresh manpower of about 1,700 CISF personnel for the Bengaluru airport in addition to the 3,500 staff currently posted there, a senior security officer said. This extra deployment of the force was approved after a security audit by security and intelligence agencies in the wake of the operationalisation of the new Terminal-2 of the KIA, the officer said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in November last year inaugurated the KIA's Terminal-2, which is an eco-friendly facility constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore. The fresh deployment of personnel was required considering the fact that the passenger load at the airport will grow. Additional check-in counters and facilities have also been created.

A similar addition of 1,400 CISF personnel was sanctioned recently by the Centre for the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. The CISF cur rently guards 66 civil airports in the country. Manpower rationalisation and augmentation at some other such facilities are currently underway, the officer further said.