Noting an overcrowding-like situation in Delhi airport yesterday, a senior official in the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Thursday said that the average time for departure immigration at the airport is around 20 minutes, but sometimes it gets delayed due to the rebalancing of manpower.
On Wednesday, there were reports of long queues at the immigration checkpoints of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport leading to irk among the passengers.
Responding to the delay for immigration at the airport, MoCA senior official told ANI, “For a short duration between 4.30 am to 6.30 am yesterday, there was a rebalancing of immigration staff at arrival and departure counters to cater to increase in the number of arriving passengers. It took about an hour to clear immigration and 10 mins to clear security (and not three hours).”
However, a Delhi airport official said that nearly half of the counters were “unmanned” leading to long queues and there was no delay at the entry to the airport premises.
“Immigration is a sovereign function, and it is the responsibility of the MHA to ensure the smooth functioning of Immigration and security anonymity,” he said.
Many passengers took to social media on Wednesday to raise their plight of inconvenience they were facing at the airport.
MoCA and other stakeholders are trying their best to reduce queues for a smooth experience at Delhi airport.
Notably, in December last year, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia made a surprise visit to Terminal 3 of the IGI airport in Delhi amid complaints of congestion and overcrowding and also held a meeting with concerned stakeholders to overcome the issue.
