In view of the relocation of many international flights to Kochi airport following the partial shutdown of the Karipur airport, the Customs Department is embarking on a plan to redeploy its personnel from Kozhikode to the international airport here.
“We are ascertaining the impact of this re-routing and will get a clear picture by next month. Based on this, a redeployment strategy will be worked out for the short-term as well as the long term’’, said K.N Raghavan, Kochi Customs Commissioner.
The step comes in the wake of reports pointing to the possibility of flight diversions giving a fillip to gold smuggling through the Kochi airport. The official is slated to hold a discussion with the Cochin International Airport Limited within two days.
According to the official, the department is currently experiencing a staff shortage of over 40 per cent, which, in turn, has taken a toll in its functioning as a whole. “We have a team of 78 personnel at the airport here, which handles an average of 37 international flights a day. While the ideal situation is to have at least 50-60 officers per one shift, we are now lagging behind with just 19 personnel at a given point of time’’, he explained.
The situation is almost the same even in the other two airports at Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode.
During the last fiscal alone, the department effected 268 gold hauls across the state and seized about 250.88 kilograms of gold, valued at Rs. 67.92 crore in the international market. Of this, Kozhikode airport accounted for about 102.49 kg of gold, followed by Kochi at 82.23 kg.
The quantity of yellow metal seized in the previous year from these airports was 82.50 kg and 43.73 kg respectively.
Meanwhile, the volume of seizure from Thiruvanathapuram airport was relatively minuscule at just 27.48 kg. A year on year comparison of the figures show that the number of gold smuggling cases increased from 223 to 228.
Flight diversions may give fillip to smuggling through Kochi airport
Department experiencing staff shortage of over
40 per cent
