Long queues were seen in the immigration line and security checkpoints at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi international airport once again this week. The situation has become a frequent hassle for passengers arriving in the capital city from abroad, especially ahead of the G20 Summit.
Images were doing rounds on social media platforms on Friday showing a massive crowd t the immigration line of Delhi airport. One such post on Twitter, shared by the official page of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030, said that there were only two officials at the immigration counter with hundreds of passengers.
“Such bad immigration lines - only two officials serving. Hundreds of passengers in Delhi Immigration @JM_Scindia @DelhiAirport SHAME,” the tweet read, with pictures from the airport.
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A user commented on the tweet saying, “The international traffic is high during the night time. It is a sad state of affairs when the airport is unable to handle the peak hours at night and early morning.”
Meanwhile, the official page of Delhi Airport also responded to the post. “Please be assured, our on-ground officials are continuously monitoring the passenger movement and are coordinating closely with the Immigration authorities to ensure passenger experience becomes better,” they said, adding that the feedback may be shared directly with the Bureau of Immigration “as the counters are manned by them on a dynamic basis”.
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Passengers travelling through Delhi airport frequently call it a perennial problem.
Earlier in March, an airport official had told news agency ANI, that nearly half of the counters at immigration and security checkpoints were "unmanned" leading to long queues. Passengers had complained of three-hour-long queues to get clear through immigration and security at Delhi airport.
The official had said that it was the responsibility of the Ministry of Home Affairs to ensure the smooth functioning of immigration at the airport.
In December last year, Delhi airport witnessed similar chaos for days with authorities issuing advisories to passengers to reach hours of scheduled reporting time due to high footfall.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation had stepped in and requested the scheduled airlines to place real-time data on their social media feeds regarding waiting time at respective airports’ entry gates. A parliamentary panel also took up the issue of congestion with the Delhi airport operator.
