A tender for the procurement of 770 dual-use X-ray baggage inspection systems (XBIS) for airports across the country has run into controversy following complaints of corruption and attempts to favour a particular company.

Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale and Member of Parliament for Mathura Hema Malini have written to Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu and raised the matter. It has also come to light that the XBIS supplied by the Indian company, which is allegedly being given “undue preference”, has not met the set standards. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and several airports have raised concerns on several occasions in the last few years.

The tender for supply, installation, testing and commissioning of Dual View XBIS for hand baggage and checked baggage at various airports in India with a one-year on-site warranty and a seven-year comprehensive annual maintenance contract with spare parts has been floated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) with the deadline for submission of bids being October 16, 2023. The estimated cost of the tender is Rs 306.5 crore. These devices are to replace the existing scanners at the airports’ security check counters which have surpassed their lifespan, the sources said.

An Indian company has been allowed to bid, while a Brazilian company, an established manufacturer that had joined forces with an Indian company to bid, was disqualified on technical grounds, a source said.

In a letter to Mr Naidu dated June 28, Mr Athawale wrote: “The company (Brazilian manufacturer) has made the allegation and raised suspicions of corruption in the evaluation of the tender by knowingly violating the rules of the Airports Authority of India relating to offices… I would be grateful if you could kindly direct the persons concerned to look into the case and conduct a fair investigation to prevent any injustice being done to the above company at the earliest.”

Another letter from Ms Hema Malini to Mr Naidu dated June 27 said: “I too am of the opinion that there have been serious irregularities in the evaluation process and that AAI is giving undue preference to some bidders. This needs to be investigated before awarding the contract.”

The two letters, as well as several complaints and performance evaluation reports on the previous batch of machines supplied by the same company, were examined by The Hindu. These examples demonstrate the extent of the problem and raise serious concerns about flight safety. Requests for comment to those involved, including the Ministry of Civil Aviation, remained unanswered.

In a tender in June 2021, the AAI procured 219 scanning machines from the company as part of its efforts to promote Make in India. However, several allegations of procedural deviations and favouritism have been raised. Officials in the know, who wished to remain anonymous, said the machines were accepted despite deficiencies in performance evaluation, which is also evident from the documents seen. Of the total 219 scanners, 129 were installed across the country — 22 in the west, 33 in the north, 10 in the northeast, 26 in the east and 38 in the south. At some airports, the XBIS were not accepted due to very poor performance and non-fulfillment of the technical specifications and functional requirements of the tender during the Site Acceptance Test, said one of the sources cited above.

Only in late July did CISF receive reports of serious malfunctions at Delhi terminals, documents show. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security has asked for comparative reports of various scanners installed at all airports, a source said.

For example, a report from Vizag Airport dated December 24, 2021, states that the resolution of the visual display unit of these particular scanners is very high, so the display of all images is of a very light colour (organic/inorganic or metallic), which is “an inconvenience to the controllers” when it comes to detecting matches, electronic lighters, etc. These devices display them in bright orange, while in other scanners “the organic colour is of a different density, which is much easier to detect”.

In another case, on January 18, 2021, the CISF Commandant sent a report to the Patna Airport Director making several observations from a performance evaluation, including: “Heavy objects like keys and coins are not clearly visible. Ghee, oils and other liquids are not clearly visible. The colour of the objects is different from the colours of the existing scanners.” Of the six tests conducted, test number five, the speed resolution test, is not clear, the release said.

The documents reveal that during the pre-tender evaluation phase between November 2020 and December 2021, the CISF communicated the poor performance to AAI at least four times. Similarly, Kolkata, Vizag, Patna, Udaipur and Indore airports have reported issues, the documents reveal. All the tests will be recorded and the evaluation will be available on video, which can be accessed to identify any deviations in the procedure, the officials said.