Bhubaneswar, April 19: Park your vehicle at the new terminal of Biju Patnaik Airport for less than five minutes, and you won’t have to pay a fee.

What’s more, you’ll have evidence to support this in the form of tickets with printed entry and exit times.

The airport authoritieshave implemented the five-minute rule for parking at the new domestic terminal. But managing traffic on the three lanes approaching the terminal remains a difficult task without the help of traffic police.

The Telegraph had published a report — Extort tactics at new terminal — on March 21, 2013, about the five-minute parking rule not being implemented at the terminal. Now, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has made it mandatory for the parking contractor to issue tickets with the time printed on it. Only if you spend more than five minutes will you have to pay the fee.

Raj Mohapatra, a student who went to the airport to drop off a relative last week, said: “The situation has improved as the tickets issued by the parking contractor now bear the time so that one can compare the entry and exit timings. But, there is no order in parking vehicles on the three lanes leading to the terminal.”

Airport director Sharad Kumar said: “The five-minute rule has been implemented, but the situation is chaotic on the three lanes meant for VIPs, cars and taxis. About 70 to 80 vehicles are parked on them at any given time. This has made our work difficult. We need traffic personnel at peak hours to manage these vehicles.”

Kumar explained that peak hours at the airport were from 8am to 11am and 6pm to 9pm when many flights took off and landed.

“But people coming to the terminal are making it a habit to park their vehicles on the approach roads, making entry and exit difficult for others. We need at least one traffic inspector, two constables and eight home guards to properly manage this situation.”

The airport authorities have been asking for traffic cops, at least during the peak hours, ever since construction on the new domestic terminal building began. Kumar said: “One-way traffic on the terminal road is required for better traffic management.”

Sources said Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police had promised the AAI to provide traffic cops after the Assembly session on April 6, but as there were several major events, such as the President’s visit and Rukuna rath yatra, no cops were available.

A senior police official, on condition of anonymity, said: “We are unable to man all the traffic squares in the city as there is a scarcity of manpower. Providing extra cops for the airport might not be possible for a long time.”

Assistant commissioner of police (traffic) Binod Dash told The Telegraph: “We will be in a position to provide cops and home guards to manage the traffic near the new domestic terminal, but it may take some time.” Dash added that traffic cops would help the AAI employees in streamlining traffic. The cops might be deployed for a particular time period, he said.