Maran wakes Praful to get queue moving

inadaily.com | The Asian Age India | R. Bhagwan Singh : "Union communications and information technology minister Dayanidhi Maran played the role of a good samaritan and woke up his civil aviation colleague Praful Patel in the early hours of Sunday to help some 300-odd passengers waiting in a serpentine queue for want of adequate scanner facilities at the Chennai international airport.

Arriving at around 1 am at the Anna International airport here to catch a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt en route to the United States, Mr Maran was shocked to find at least 300 passengers moving at a snail's pace in a long queue before the lone Air-India scanner. Besides his Lufthansa flight, there were four others scheduled to take off around that time, including the British Airways London flight and two Gulf flights.

Finding that the passengers, including many foreigners, were turning restless and angry over the huge delay for scanning their luggage, Mr Maran asked the airport staff why there was only one scanner to handle so much traffic. An officer explained that of the two Air-India scanners, one was out of service for over three months and that left the airline only one system to handle not just its own passengers but all the other international airlines as well.

When he was informed that there was one more scanner at the airport and it belonged to the Airports Authority of India, Mr Maran summoned the airport manager, Mr Shrivazdhuv, to release it to clear the rush, but the latter pleaded inability to do so unless he got instructions from his seniors.

Wasting little time, Mr Maran picked up his mobile and dialled his colleague in the civil aviation ministry to explain the situation to Mr Praful Patel. Rising to the occasion, Mr Patel immediately issued instructions over the telephone to his officials to release the AAI scanner to clear the rush and also get the out-of-order Air-India scanner serviced without further delay.

While the queue split into two faster-moving tracks, Mr Maran went around apologising to the passengers, particularly the foreigners, pleading with them not to misjudge India by "this isolated inconvenience" but to appreciate the overall development of the country. He then promised them that their next trip to Chennai would be much more pleasant since the airport was fast getting upgraded as an international one and would soon be as good as the best anywhere in the world.

Even as the stressed-out passengers relaxed, the minister moved on to catch his own flight, drawing a curtain on the 25-minute airport drama."