New Delhi [India], December 15 : Space allocations for commercial activities should be planned on the principle of being 'on the way', and 'not in the way' to ensure smooth and natural flow of passengers, said Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday here in the national capital.
He was addressing media persons at the national media centre on matters related to congestion at airports.
The minister stated that public convenience is paramount and that he is answerable to the public.
On forming guidelines for space for business establishments and commercial lounges at airports, he stated that commercial space should be allocated only after adequate space has been identified and earmarked for passenger processing and other support services.
"Any proposal for additional space for business establishments is subjected to space availability to meet passenger facility requirements for projected future traffic growth. Space required to serve projected future traffic growth to be identified and not be utilised for other than intended purposes," he said.
Straight emergency evacuation routes and passenger movement/circulation corridors should be provisioned considering minimum travel distance while allocating space for retail, duty-free food and beverage areas, he said.
On the question of facilities at airports in European countries in comparison with India, he said that Indian airports are in a far better state compared to many European countries that often reel under congestion and baggage issues.
"We increased the number of departure gates, we also increased the number of passengers check-in gates. We also made sure that we increased the number of ATRS and XBIS machines. Some airports complained about the lack of space within their airports so we visited those airports where there were VIP lounges or retail and commercial spaces which needn't be there...We made sure we broke down the VIP lounges and removed retail spaces and a case in point is the Delhi airport where after the removal of the VIP lounge, five X-ray machines were placed in that particular area which eased congestion tremendously," he said.
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