Aadhaar based biometric attendance system for Government staffs which was supposed to be effective from April 1 has been postponed due to the ongoing electoral process.
Sharing this reason, an official in Deputy Commissioner’s office said on Tuesday that around 20 to 22 departments under district administration including education, registry, animal husbandry and Collectorate have failed to manage equipment since most of the staffs are busy in election duty.
“As you can see, the biometric attendance system is to ensure working slot of eight hours duty. But, nowadays we all are working for about 10 to 12 hours due to preparations for upcoming elections. In such scenario it is not possible to install the biometric attendance equipments and begin their functioning. The process will begin after the end of Model Code of Conduct in the month of May,” an officer on the condition of anonymity said.
According to sources, one biometric attendance machines will be installed for 100 staffs in a particular district level office. The officer mentioned, “Since the staffs had to enroll their Aadhaar numbers for this process so their attendance code will have the last digits of their Aadhaar number.”
Ranchi district education officer SC Marandi had another reason for not being able to start this plan. “We were instructed by state human resources development principal secretary on March 10 to watch that all our teaching and non-teaching staffs register themselves in the state government’s website for this attendance system. We held workshops on March 27 and explained our staffs on how to follow the registration steps so as to start the plan by April 1,” Marandi said.
He further added, “Unfortunately this concerned department we has not provided us the system devices. Unless, they do not give us we cannot implement this attendance mechanism.”
As many as two dozen attendance machines are required for this set up. A Collectorate official said, “It is obvious that none of the staffs would welcome this attendance procedure at present because it will prove to be a failure. We cannot force our colleagues to mark their attendance of eight hours and work more than this mentioned timing. This would give the lazy employees an easy escape from pre-election responsibilities.”