CHENNAI: Gold smuggling cartels operating in collusion with the staff at Chennai international airport can largely be curbed if a biometric chip enabled access system, already installed five years ago, is put into use, say officials from multiple agencies.
In December 2019, the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation launched the biometric-enabled Centralised Access Control System (CACS) at 48 airports in the country including Chennai, where around 60 gates were provided this access control facility.
All staff at the airport, including officials from various agencies and ground handling staff were given a Biometric Airport Entry Pass (BAEP) which would have to be swiped at the gate for entry. The BAEP has a chip which when swiped against the card reader at the gate, would restrict access to only the employee’s places of work.
For instance, if an employee is posted to the departure terminal, their card would not allow the person to get past the gate in the arrival area or any other part of the airport. Some officers are given access to all parts of the airport.
The CACS was also envisaged to improve the security efficiency at the airport and reduce the workload of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, who must physically verify the credentials of thousands of employees. For example, Chennai airport has around 20,000 employees.
However, despite a properly functional system, the BAEP and access gates are currently not in use, and CISF staff are verifying the BAEP physically. “If the CACS is operational, we will get data of who comes in and goes out at a particular time. This will help in better security,” said an official of an agency.
This would also have helped agencies like Customs to nab staff who loiter in areas of the airport they are not allowed access to and collude with passengers to help bring smuggled gold out. For instance, in the Rs 941 crore gold diversion case at Chennai Air Cargo complex investigated by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in 2022, some of the colluding Customs officials were not posted at the cargo section.
Similarly, there have been instances of staff coming to the airport on their week off and helping gold smugglers, which would have been curbed if the CACS was functional, official sources said.
The CACS would also help in solving gold smuggling cases, as the data log would indicate the employees entering or exiting a particular area of the airport with the time stamp, the sources added.
According to Airports Authority of India (AAI) sources, the system is not in use due to some back-end server issues. However, a similar system with an updated technology is likely to be installed at Chennai airport soon, AAI sources added.