While Rajya Sabha has witnessed stormy scenes over the past couple of days with several members pointing out that surveillance for H1N1 influenza at Indian airports is still not satisfactory, many passengers arriving at IGI said screening process at the airport is little more than a sham.

Delhi now has 44 people infected with the H1N1 virus.

Newsline visited the immigration area of Terminal 2 of IGI to track the process and found passengers are cleared, without health officials even looking at them. There are still no thermal scanners in the country’s second largest airport, and little manual screening.

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said in Parliament today that 100 out of 109 reported H1N1 influenza cases in India had “imported virus”, of which 70 per cent came from the US.

Here’s what Newsline found: soon as passengers arrive and pass through the aerobridge into the main building, they encounter two screening counters on either side of the barricade leading to immigration counters. Several officials wearing masks man these counters — two wooden desks. The officials (both airport Health Ministry officials say they are doctors) scrutinise forms and stamp them at great speed before passengers move to the immigration area.

Immigration checking is followed by baggage claiming, and a passenger is out of the airport just as swiftly as it sounds.

“There is no medical check up at the airport,” said Mredu Akhauri (see box), who arrived on Thursday in a Turkish Airways flight with her family after a European tour.

... contd.