Bhubaneswar, April 8: The Biju Patnaik International Airport authorities have terminated the licence of the parking lot contractor following incidents of alleged attack on passengers by its employees.

Director of the airport Sharad Kumar said the contract of the parking lot operator was terminated after the reply given by his manager was found unsatisfactory.

The authorities had sought an explanation from the operator in the second week of February after the employees attacked a retired army officer.

However, even after a showcause notice was served on them, the staff manhandled another person after which the police commissioner took up the issue with the airport director.

"We had assured the police chief that we would terminate the contract as they had been regularly misbehaving with the passengers. We had in fact sought explanation from them regarding their behaviour, but when we found the reply unsatisfactory, we went ahead and cancelled their licence," said Kumar.

The operator has been given one week to vacate the parking area, Kumar said. "We will have our own arrangement in place till the new tender process is finalised," said the airport director. The authorities are going to float new tender within a week.

The parking lot officials, however, said they were yet to get any notice regarding the cancellation of the licence.

The contractor, who had paid Rs 14 lakh for three years, has been absconding since the attack on the army officer in the first week of February. Even the airport officials said they could not contact him. The parking lot staff said they had made alternate arrangements.

"The unruly staff who were creating problems have been removed and new ones have been inducted," said a parking lot employee.

Passengers, who are aware of the current chaos at the parking lot, said the staff used to behave badly with them. They would take time to clear the traffic and demand fees from people unnecessarily. "After whatever happened of late, I thought the authorities would take stringent action against them, but today I found the same members collecting fees and their attitude have not changed a bit. It's not the money, but the way these boys behave that is shocking," said Samaresh Senapati, a businessman.

The airport authorities are planning to increase the time limit for exemption from parking fees for people who are coming to drop or pick-up passengers. At present, the time limit is five minutes and people allege that long queue at the fee collection centre takes more time and therefore they are forced to pay more.

Besides, the authorities are also planning to install hydraulic boom barrier for checking the time limit of these vehicles and collect fees. Sources said these things might be taken care of when the new tender process was finalised.

Passengeres, however, said the authorities should prevent incidents of manhandling.

"Whoever manages the parking lot will resort to same activities of harassing people unless exemplary actions are taken against themor people friendly arrangements are made They should know how to behave with the passengers<>," said Smruti Swarupa Nayak, a passenger.