New Delhi:
The Delhi Election Commission has brought city airports under scanner to curb flow of black money in the run up to Delhi Assembly polls.
It also instructed the civil aviation agencies today to inform it about hiring of chartered planes by political parties and their movement schedules.
The enforcement agencies like Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), Delhi Police and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) will specially focus on movement of cash above Rs 10 lakh or bullion above 1 kg through airports.
The BCAS will conduct proper frisking and pre-embarkation, checking of all persons, screening and physical checking of baggage.
Enforcement agencies CISF, Delhi Police and Income Tax department will videograph all actions related to detection or seizure of goods and cash at the airports.
BCAS has been asked to intimate the EC office about all the seizures done at the airports in the coming days.
"The civil aviation agencies will have to inform Chief Electoral Officer and District Electoral Officer about the movement of chartered planes hired by the political parties.
"Directions have been issued to strictly check all the baggage including hand bags being carried in all such charted planes," Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer Vijay Dev said.
In order to strictly implement the expenditure limit of candidates in the upcoming assembly election, the Delhi Election Commission will also keep strict vigil on movement of cash, commodities, bullions and contraband goods through Delhi airports.
As far as transfer of money through Hawala channels are concerned, the EC has deployed expenditure monitoring teams to keep a tab on them. "All those spots are under our scanners and actions are being taken based on intelligence inputs," Dev said.
The EC today held a high level meeting with officials from BCAS, Airports Authority of India, Delhi Police, CISF and private carrier operators among others to finalise standard operating procedures to deal with the problem.
The meeting also extensively discussed ways to cut flow of black money in the run up to the election.
"A coordination meeting was held on Monday with officials of all stakeholders involved in management, safety and security of airports. Special attention is being given to flow of black money through airport channels," Dev added.