MUMBAI: Oil bottles and coconuts—items that are confiscated during the airport security check have, in a twist of fate, ended up becoming ‘dangerous goods' for over 15 senior officials of Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) as they have lost their jobs for taking these goods for personal use, said aviation sources.
Last month, the MIAL management allegedly forced over 15 middle management officials to resign for having pocketed these security restricted articles (SRA).
These goods were marked for disposal.
SRA items are objects such as knives, batteries, toys, cello tape, chilli, lighters, e-cigarettes, coconuts, oil, and so on, which are banned in the passenger cabin and hence confiscated from flyers by the CISF during pre-departure security check.
The resignations happened last month, from Aug 1, after MIAL's HR department confronted these officials with CCTV footage taken in the previous months. The footage showed these officials taking these SRA items for personal use. Some of the officials TOI spoke to claimed were told to either submit a resignation right away or face termination.
MIAL did not respond to a query sent by TOI.
The CISF sends the confiscated items to the MIAL terminal operations department. At the end of each 12-hour shift a register entry is made of the confiscated SRA goods.
"The items are bound for the garbage bin or are boxed and collected by NGO Rescue Foundation. We assumed taking an SRA item wouldn't be a major violation which calls for termination. For years now, none of the bosses bothered with the confiscated coconuts, oil bottles. It was more of a nuisance," said one of the officials who was made to resign. He added the officials who lost their jobs have been on the rolls of MIAL for over 1 to 2 decades and hold posts such as senior duty terminal officers, duty terminal manager, deputy manager and senior executive, among others. "Our grievance is that we were kicked out without as much as a warning for a first-time offence," the official added.
Advocate Ashok Shetty said, "The punishment should be commensurate with the gravity of the misconduct and the length of service put in by the employee concerned. The Supreme Court of India emphasises due process and a fair hearing before terminating an employee." He added that 15 people being forced to resign amounts to illegal termination without holding an inquiry.
Mumbai airport handles about 1.5 lakh passengers a day. Despite placards displaying pictures of restricted items, passengers pack in these items. For instance: An entry made in May during a day shift duty had items such as e-cigarettes (2), match box (25), coconut (50), cells (10), tools (2), cutter (08), talcum powder (20), scissors (12), knife (9) and screwdriver (14).
Passengers apparently pack in all sorts of restricted items. Some days the SRA confiscated items list stretches to over two dozen items—spanners, masking tape, toy gun, rope, candle, plier, spices, luggage chain, pepper spray, big umbrella, big bat, copra and chilli powder.