The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which protects airports, found things worth Rs 56.11 crore that travellers had abandoned at the 66 airports located throughout the nation in 2022.
The items found abandoned at the airports include cell phones, laptops, wallets, earphones (especially wireless ones), smart watches, sunglasses, flasks, sippers and even reading glasses, according to data.
Out of the wholesome articles, only things worth 11.47 crore were collected by the flyers.
The officials, who regularly deal with such objects were saying that majority of the items are forgotten in baggage scanner trays. “We find AirPods on the ground or at the charging stations. In an airport like Delhi or Mumbai, the number of AirPods we find every day is around 15-25,” Hindustan Times quoted the officials as saying.
The data shows that travellers leaving through Delhi left the most stuff behind (by value), totaling 10.1 crore, followed by those leaving through Mumbai (8.8 crore), Hyderabad (4.6 crore), and Kolkata (2.2 crore).
“Finding smart watches and AirPods has become very common at the airports. People forget these things at the X Ray scanner counters or in the bathrooms,” said an official.
The force tracks the value of goods recovered each day rather than keeping an annual log of everything found. For instance, on Wednesday, they discovered nine earbuds and at least 11 watches at the Delhi airports.
According to an analysis of data from the previous year, the travellers frequently forget their blazers in airports like Chandigarh, Srinagar, Agartala, and Bagdogra. These were the most frequently retrieved items in the winter months, followed by computers, cell phones, and smart watches, the officials said, adding these were typically found close to X-ray scanners and restrooms.
“Passengers who take flights at these airports are usually those travelling from hill stations. Because of the weather, they may be wearing warm clothes at the time of entering the airport. Many of them forget to take it back after sending the jackets through the X-ray scanners or after removing it inside the airport. This is a trend that is limited to only some airports,” a CISF official.
Although losing electronics was understandable, some people reportedly lost much more valuable things. The largest of these finds was 11.42kg of gold or precious metals in Mumbai last year. Its weight was 5.24kg in Bangalore, 4.52kg in Chennai, and 4.54kg in Delhi (3.44 kg).
According to a CISF spokesman, the “total gold and valuable objects” collected at airports were worth roughly 21.54 crore rupees.
An official at the Delhi airport explained the procedure and said “for the first five days, all retrieved items are kept in the lost and found section”.
“If no one comes forward to take it, it is taken to the central storage unit at Terminal 2. Such items are kept there for 90 days. If no one comes forward to claim the items, it is given to Customs. In cases of items of smaller value but which are important, after 95 days the items are handed over to an NGO so that it is put to good use,” he added.