Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday inaugurated the newly constructed Aviation Security Control Centre (ASCC) at Mahipalpur Campus of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) here for centralised monitoring of incidents/events occurring at airports and to resolve them on a real-time basis.

In its bid to monitor and mitigate evolving threats at airports, the CISF has established a modern state-of-art centralised Aviation Security Control Centre, integrating the Security Operations Control Centres (SOCCs) of all 66 airports. The control centre is also equipped with cutting edge technologies like data centre, R&D Lab and War room.

In order to monitor the security functions and resource utilisation on a real-time basis, Security Operations Control Centres (SOCCs) are functional at every airport. These SOCCs serve as nerve/nodal centres for collection and dissemination of important information 24x7, especially during contingencies.

Due to increased air traffic and passenger load, current security scenario, evolving nature of threat perceptions and geographical spread of airports across the country, a need was felt for centralised monitoring of incidents/events occurring at airports to resolve them on a real-time basis, the CISF said in a statement. Salient features of the newly inaugurated centre include 24x7 Real time data monitoring and trend analysis of passengers and air traffic.

This facility will provide realistic input about passenger (pax) traffic at a given point of time and help in mobilising the resources for optimum utilisation. Some of the aspects covered are- bomb threat calls, VVIP movement highlight, major incidents, pax clearance time, utilisation of security gadgets and queue management system among others.

It will also provide incident and contingency management- All the 66 airports are now connected through VPN and IP telephonic system and can be accessed at any point of time by the senior officers during the time of any contingent situation.  The facility will also aid in trend analysis of real-time data to enhance the effectiveness of decision making at higher levels.

It will also conduct research on advanced and artificial intelligence (AI) based aviation security equipment available worldwide, comparative analysis of different equipment and its applicability at Indian airports. It will further help in resolution of social media feedback by monitoring on popular social sites.

“This newly established ASCC will play an important role in its quest to play a greater role in aviation security and future of the Force,” the CISF said in its statement.

Director General CISF Sheel Vardhan Singh, Director of Intelligence Bureau Tapan Kumar Deka, Director General Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) Zulfiquar Hasan and others attended the event.

CISF was inducted at airports for the first time in February 2000. CISF is currently providing security cover to 66 airports out of 134 operational airports in the country, which includes extremely busy and hyper-sensitive airports of country like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Jammu, Srinagar and Amritsar among others.