The Airports Authority of India (AAI) currently charges Rs 130 per departing passenger as PSF, a rate that has remained unchanged for more than a decade. The current PSF level is far lower than the actual expenditure on securing the airports.
Flyers will soon have to shell out more as airfares are expected to increase with an impending hike in passenger security fee (PSF).
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) currently charges Rs 130 per departing passenger as PSF, a rate that has remained unchanged for more than a decade. The current PSF level is far lower than the actual expenditure on securing the airports.
The jump in the security cost follows the Centre's decision to engage the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to guard all 98 airports across the country amid a growing threat perception. The revenue-neutral burden will be passed on to passengers.
After bringing in the CISF, the PSF is bound to increase substantially, said an AAI official, pointing out that the CISF excels in providing the least obtrusive security cover, and has become a necessity with the increase in threat perception from terror outfits.
Home ministry sources said the issue of who would foot the security bill was resolved between the ministries of home affairs and civil aviation at the behest of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
"Civil aviation ministry has been asked to work out how much revenue they can generate on their own and what will be the escalation required in the PSF charges to provide CISF security cover on revenue neutral basis to across all the airports," said a home ministry official, on condition of anonymity.
Currently, 59 of 98 functional airports in the country are under CISF cover; of those, 26 airports, including those in New Delhi and Mumbai, are categorised as hyper-sensitive.
"Taking security cover at airports as a sovereign function, the home ministry will incur all the expenditure on the CISF. The revenue generated from the PSF by the AAI will go into the Consolidated Fund of India from which the finance ministry will allocate funds to the union home ministry under CISF head in the demand for grants," added the source.
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