Pune airport all set to carry out live testing of DigiYatra
The Pune international airport is all set to carry out live testing of DigiYatra - a virtual method of facial verification - from Thursday.
"Till now, we were conducting dry testing of the system. Hereon, we will carry out live testing of flyers. We will be conducting live testing at the D1 gate from January 12 to 31. The report will be shared with our headquarters and if errors are found in the system, they will be rectified. Once we get approval from the headquarters, the DigiYatra system will be installed at other airport gates as well in the second phase," Santosh Dhoke, director, Pune international airport, said on Wednesday.
The airport authorities want to observe whether or not flyers are comfortable with the system. "It is very important to see how much the flyers are comfortable with the new security check system. Further decisions will be taken based on that," Dhoke said.
DigiYatra aims to achieve seamless and contactless processing of passengers at airports based on facial recognition technology (FRT). With DigiYatra, passenger data will be processed automatically based on facial recognition at various checkpoints of the airport. When a Hindustan Times reporter visited the airport, he found that facial recognition systems had been installed at the D1 gate. Flexes providing information about DigiYatra were ready but they were still to be installed at the D1 gate. DigiYatra will play a big role in decongesting long security check queues at the Pune airport which are causing a lot of inconvenience to flyers. DigiYatra was launched at Delhi T3, Bengaluru and Varanasi in December 2022. The system will also be launched at Hyderabad, Kolkata and Vijayawada airports in 2023.
Red carpet welcome for G20 delegates
"As per instructions of the civil aviation ministry, preparations have been made for the G20 summit. The branding of G20 has also been carried out at different places as advised by the ministry of external affairs. All arrangements at the arrival and departure gates have been made for the delegates, and we are also making provision for a red carpet welcome for them," Dhoke said.
The Pune airport authorities are ready to welcome delegates in the traditional Maharashtrian way. The delegates will be arriving on January 14 and 15.
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How to create a DigiYatra id?
After downloading the DigiYatra app from the Google playstore or iOS app store, passengers can get this id by sharing details such as name, email address, mobile number, and identification details (Aadhaar/driving license/voter id). After entering this information, a DigiYatra id will be created; it has to be shared while booking tickets. Airline companies, in turn, will share this id and passenger data with the airport of departure.