Pune: Member of Parliament Anil Shirole will write a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for deploying soft skills-trained officials from the ministry at the Pune Airport at Lohegaon. Shirole has already discussed the issue with the ministry.

Recently, the airlines officials at the Pune Airport had raised the issue before the Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials, Pune to depute trained people from MHA to handle the immigration counters at the Pune airport.

MP Shirole has taken this issue seriously and he will write the letter to the MHA to depute the officials trained in soft skills. “The issue was taken up to me at the recently held Airport Advisory Committee (AAC) meeting. I have already talked to MHA and I will send letters soon to the MHA to depute the trained officials of MHA. This will benefit the passengers as well as the airlines,” said Shirole.

Presently, the immigration counters are handled by the officials of the Maharashtra police at the airport. According to the officials of the private airlines, the question asked by the staff members at immigration counters are annoying and irrelevant.

The issue has been raised by Suhas Jadhav, Air India station manager to AAI. He also wrote a letter to the authority. During the AAC meeting held on June 27, he raised the issue again. The airport director brought this issue to the notice of Shirole.

“The airport is expanding and like in other airports, the immigration needs to be handled by people who have got all the training required to handle immigration and have better knowhow. The process in Pune is a bit slow and as the expansion process is on, the passenger traffic including the incoming of foreign travellers will see a jump,” said Suhas Jadhav.