A mobile app for lost items at Indian airports
As of now this year, passenger belongings worth around INR 50 million (approx USD 767 thousand) have been restored through the web portal
The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) recently launched a mobile application named ‘Lost and Found’, to enable travellers register complaints to recover lost or forgotten items at various Indian airports.
The electronic data processing (EDP) Cell of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) of the National e-Governance Division (NeGD), recently developed a mobile application for passengers at Indian airports to register complaints for lost items.
The ‘Lost and Found’ application can be downloaded from the website of the Indian Information and Technology Ministry with an advantage of directly registering complaints and getting the status of complaints immediately from the airports under security cover.
The ‘Lost and Found’ scheme was first launched by the government in 2015 to trace and restore items and valuables left behind by the commuters at airports. Last year, the CISF restored properties worth INR 500 million (USD 7.6 million) and this year until now, valuables worth INR 50 million (approx USD 767 thousand) have been restored through the web portal.
According to some passengers who reported missing items on the web portal in the past, the system of lost and found is in place, while others say that there have been delays in response to the complaints.
“I could easily get back my cosmetic products which I mistakenly left inside the aircraft when I de-boarded it at the Bhubaneshwar airport in Odisha. I just had to prove that the packet is mine and that was it,” a frequent traveller on the Mumbai-Odisha air route, told the Media India Group.
However, there are others who couldn’t completely recover their lost belongings and hope that the new application will make a difference. “I forgot my glasses and a packet at the airport lounge in Mumbai. I got back the packet but with one item and my glasses missing,” says Kushagra Sirohi, a resident of west Delhi.
Making the lost and found mechanism better and more citizen-centric, the application introduced three facilities – ‘Lost and found items at airports’, ‘Tracking complaint/request status’ and ‘Technical consultancy in security and fire services’.
