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Airport security to be upgraded


Published : 09 Jun 2019 09:13 PM | Updated : 04 Sep 2020 05:21 PM

The government is going to upgrade the security system of the country's three international gateways to international standard. Civil Aviation Authority Bangladesh (CAAB) with the financial assistance of development partners is going to install latest security scanners for both cargo and passengers at the three international airports of the country.

“Once the proposal gets approval, civil aviation will implement the project by June 2020,” a top planning commission source said. Under the project, the existing security system at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Shah Amanat International Airport of Chattogram and Osmani International Airport of Sylhet will be upgraded with an estimated cost of Tk 59.62 crore.

The planning commission official on anonymity said a draft proposal titled 'International Airports Security System Development' was placed before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC). The ECNEC then sent it back asking for detailed project proposal.
“In a meeting of planning commission’s project evaluation committee in October 2018, several recommendations were made to amend the proposal. Once the recommended amendments are made to the draft proposal, it will be placed before the next ECNEC meeting for final approval,” the official said, adding CAAB will then implement the project within the stipulated time.

Civil Aviation ant Tourism Ministry sources said Japan International Cooperation Agency recently conducted a survey in the country's three international airports to supply and install security equipment. Based on the survey, JICA agreed to provide technical support to install two UDS scanners for cargo and four body scanners for international passengers at Shahjalal airport, one body scanner at Shah Amanat airport and one body scanner at Osmani airport.

In this regard, a Memorandum of understanding (MOU) titled ‘Record of Discussion’ was signed in July last year. Later, during a joint coordination meeting between JICA and CAAB ‘Minutes of Meeting’ was also signed. To implement the project, JICA will provide loan TK 54.10 crore and rest Tk 5.52 crore will come from CAAB own fund.

Subir Kishore Choudhury, Member of physical infrastructure division of planning commission said, “Once the project is completed it will increase the overall security measures of our airports to international standard.”