Aadhaar Biometric Attendance System – Central Government Employees Attendance Record to be Modernized
A decade before, all the government offices had printed ‘Attendance Register’ in which employees used to sign against their names in order to record their attendance. The register would usually be kept in front of an Secton officer and register should be initialed at the bottom by the Section Officer. Every employee should note down the time of arrival and departure under his /her initial in ink in the Attendance Register. At the end of the 10 minutes grace time, the register would be taken to the department head’s table.
This system was followed by various computerized methods like smartcard, swipe card, and show card. The most popular method now is the Biometric Attendance System, which captures the employees’ fingerprint to record his/her attendance. The Government explained that the new system has been implemented in order to reduce late-coming. The point worth noting is that no changes can be made in the registered time of arrival or leaving, in this method. Higher officials get immediate reports on the time the employee arrived and the time he/she left the office.
Now, the Central Government has gone one step further and has made these attendance records accessible to all. All information including real time chart can be monitored by public also. Through its website, http://attendance.gov.in/, facilities have been made to view the attendance record in real time to bring more transparency. Through the ‘Aadhar’ card-based system, the employee’s fingerprint is captured in the Biometric Attendance device. The details of the employees, including their Aadhar card numbers, are immediately updated on the website. The information collected from various biometric attendance devices are gathered on a centralized Management Information System (MIS) website. All the gathered information is then presented in the form of a Real Time Chart.
All Central Govt Employees Federations have objected to the new attendance system. An order was issued in DOPT dated 28.01.1988, that said that the members of the National Council JCM Staff Side should be consulted with before implementing any new technologies. They asked if the NC JCM’s opinion was considered in this scheme. They have demanded that Pick-up Point System facility must be implemented in order to avoid late-coming in crucial industries, including infrastructure development. They said, every employee is expected to be on seat and to start work at the prescribed opening of office hour.