Calcutta, India -- A query triggered by a parliamentarian's loss has prompted the government to unzip baggage data that suggest India's airports are getting increasingly theft-prone.
Airports across the country cumulatively documented 114 cases of baggage theft last year, a 50 per cent increase over the number during the previous year, the Union civil aviation ministry has told Parliament.
The Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi alone accounted for 67 of the cases last year, and has already registered 28 among the 47 such incidents reported between January and May this year, the ministry said in a report tabled in the Lok Sabha last week.
B.V. Nayak, the Congress MP from Raichur constituency in Karnataka, lost Rs 2 lakh in cash while travelling from Bangalore to Hyderabad in May this year. The theft had prompted him to ask the government whether "the number of cases of baggage theft has increased in the country during the last three years".
Recalling the incident, Nayak today told The Telegraph he felt something amiss when he noticed that two knobs on his suitcase were broken when he collected it at Hyderabad airport.
"I immediately checked and found that while clothes and documents kept inside were there, Rs 2 lakh in notes I had kept in the suitcase were missing - I felt violated," he said.
"I had taken an Air India flight, so I immediately took up the matter with airline staff at Hyderabad airport but they said the theft could not have taken place after check-in, it would have happened during scanning of the luggage - which I think is an unbelievable explanation."
Although he did not get his money back, Nayak thought of asking the government about what it is doing to stop such incidents.
Air India spokespersons were not available for comment on the incident despite repeated attempts to reach them.
Executives with the Air Passengers Association of India, a body that advocates air travellers' rights, said there has been a marked increase in the number of complaints about such incidents.
"In most cases, suitcases and bags remain locked, but valuables are found missing later - most of the time it is electronic items such as laptops or cameras, jewellery or cash that are taken away by baggage-handling staffers," an official at APAI said.
"Taking up the matter with airline staff is mostly a futile exercise as they simply wash their hands of the incidents. The government should ensure stricter security around areas where cargo is handled. We feel that a simple measure of putting surveillance cameras at baggage-handling areas will be very effective"
Mahesh Sharma, the junior civil aviation minister, accepted that the complaints about baggage theft had seen a sharp rise over the past two years but said that various measures were being taken to prevent such incidents.
"On all airports, we have asked the Central Industrial Security Force - responsible for the security arrangements at the airports - to frisk ground handling staff while leaving airports," he said. "We have also asked for the deployment of airline security staff in the baggage make up and break up areas and around the cargo hold areas of the airlines."
An official in the aviation ministry said it had been made mandatory for ground handling staff to submit their photo identity cards after completion of their shift.
A spokesperson for an air carrier, however, said that stolen baggage was a "rarity", given the number of passengers that run into millions each year. He added that most of the airlines immediately remove suspected baggage handlers if such cases come to light.
Source: The Telegraph India
