Josy Joseph in New Delhi

Some time within the next two months, a domestic airliner will be hijacked.

It will be a mock hijack, similar to the exercise carried out with a Jet Airways craft in Bangalore last February. An exercise aimed at testing the alertness of airport security.

The mock hijacks underline a very real threat. A year after Kandahar, intelligence agencies paint a grim picture. The threat to Indian airlines has increased, they say. Political interference and localised vested interests have combined to create massive holes in security, they warn.

And to add to the unsavoury mix, there is the massive financial shortage that is crippling all effects to provide blanket security across the airports in this country. So dire is the financial position that the aviation ministry is in fact proposing to charge passengers more.

In other words, if we want to be secure, we have to pay for it ourselves -- the government, increasingly, finds itself unable to foot the bill.

The efforts of airports to beef up security by co-opting the state police have failed. Follow-up reviews, by both airlines authorities and intelligence agencies, have revealed major security lapses in those airports that are now being guarded by state police personnel.

In Ranchi, dummy runs proved that any kind of weapon could be smuggled with ease through the 'security blanket' provided by the Bihar police.

At Calcutta airport, two months ago, the West Bengal police passed a passenger through the barricades. It was only at the ladder checkpoint by Jet Airways personnel that the security lapse was spotted.

In Mumbai, a few weeks back, a passenger carried a pistol in his hand luggage. The x-ray scanning revealed the weapon, yet the bag was stamped by the security personnel and the passenger allowed to go through.

"State police personnel are more prone to local influences and corruption," says a senior official at the aviation ministry. Fear of local gangsters and/or local politicians also tends to daunt the police, he argues.

The plan to induct selected Central Industrial Security Force personnel to replace the state police is moving ahead -- but at an excruciatingly slow pace. Nineteen airports are now covered by CISF personnel -- out of a total of 66 airports in the country that cater to civilian aircraft.

Again, the problem is money, or the lack thereof. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security estimates that it will cost Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) to provide CISF cover for all 66 airports. The current budget provides a mere Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) per year for airport security -- in other words, just one third of the actual requirement.

In order to make up the Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) deficit, the aviation ministry plans to charge an extra Rs 100 per passenger.

At present, each passenger pays Rs 125 as Passenger Service Fee, out of which Rs 55 is earmarked for meet security costs. "We are gauging public response before going in for an across-the-board increase," says Viranna Aivalli, Director General, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security.

Security on the ground is rudimentary. In the air, however, it is quite simply non-existent. There is a severe shortage of 'sky marshals', specially trained commandos of the National Security Guard, who are planted on flights in the guise of regular passengers to thwart hijack bids. The government, as consistently, has turned down the requests, claiming non-availability of personnel.

As of now, flights of Indian Airlines, Air-India and Alliance Air are covered by 'sky marshals' -- but only at random. Thus, on any given day, two or three shuttles on the Delhi-Mumbai route is covered. Officials claim that every flight from the northeast and from Jammu and Kashmir carry commando cover.

However, international flights out of India, which carry a greater risk of hijack, are yet to be covered. Of special concern to intelligence agencies are flights to and from Bangkok, where several anti-Indian terrorist organisations such as NSCN (IM) have their operational base.

Bangkok, in fact, is a classic case of how red tape can stifle the best of initiatives. Thai authorities have given consent to carry sky marshals on flights in the Bangkok-India sector. However, till date, no Bangkok flight carries a commando on board. Why? Because authorities are yet to find a suitable 'strong room' in Bangkok to deposit their weapons, while waiting for the flight to take off.

"When a flight lands in Bangkok, there is a wait of several hours before it returns, and during that time, the sky marshals cannot walk around the airport carrying weapons, so a 'strong room' is required," an official explains.

Official statements, though, are at odds with this grim picture. Security, officials at the aviation ministry say, has improved in the wake of last year's hijack. "Ladder point checking, increased monitoring of luggage and other such measures have tightened security," an official claims.

Jammu airport could become a target for a deadly strike in the near future, intelligence agencies say.

"Security in Jammu has been beefed up," officials respond.

The Hijack: One Year On