New Delhi:Â India’s babus, notorious for showing up late to work, “not being on their seat” when they do, and taking frequent tea breaks, now have an electronic surveillance system to answer to.
A new website that registers staff attendance records, seeking to tackle absenteeism, went live at the end of September.
Attendance.gov.in is hooked up to special computers in government offices that will identify employees through their fingerprint and a unique identity number, a process that is meant to take less than a second.
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“It all started with the Prime Minister giving the idea,” said project coordinator Shefali Sushil Dash of the National Informatics Centre, the agency for e-government initiatives. The PMO will also take part in the scheme, she said.
The dashboard of the Biometric Attendance System displays a dynamic, real-time chart of how many people are at work. It is also possible to click through and check when an individual checks in and logs out of the system.
The system is based on the Aadhaar biometric identity card system launched by the last government. Using their Aadhaar numbers, more than 50,000 government workers at 148 government bodies in the capital have been enrolled in the system. The plan is to double that figure.
Staff can clock in using a fingerprint scan at the entrance of their offices. Top-ranking civil servants can do so, without queuing, with devices attached to their workstations.Â
Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged during his election campaign to crack the whip on civil servants, who were also instructed after he took over in May to clean up their offices and remove the dusty files and battered furniture that often lines the corridors of government departments.
“Everyone is equal under this new system, unlike before, when junior workers would mark attendance on a register but senior officers would not necessarily (do so),” said a government official involved with the programme to news agency AFP on condition of anonymity.