Expedite launch of courier operations at airport

Airports Authority of India (AAI) has urged the customs authorities to issue a public notification soon to pave the way for the launch of international courier operations at the airport here. It wrote a letter to the authorities, in the first week of this month, detailing the steps taken to start the operations and asking them to de-link the issue of providing Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) connectivity. Delay would lead to revenue loss to various agencies. The Central Board of Excise and Customs, New Delhi, had approved new posts to begin the courier operations at the airport last year. The AAI had paid cost recovery charges of ?9.76 lakh in August last year to the authorities for payment of salary to their personnel proposed to be deployed to man the facility. Necessary infrastructure was created to deal with overseas courier consignments. 

An X-ray machine was installed at the proposed courier terminal. But a formal notification was yet to be issued. In December last year, the customs authorities here had informed the airport authorities that courier terminal would be made operational as soon as EDI connectivity was provided. They said EDI connectivity could not be provided at once due to capacity constraints and that it would take a few months. So, the AAI has urged the authorities to de-link EDI connectivity as major airports such as Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad had international courier service without EDI. The Express Courier Operators Association had written a letter a few months ago seeking the early commencement of courier operations