Biometric attendance made compulsory from May 1 for Corporation Employees

As an important step towards streamlining the attendance of employees, Tiruchi Corporation has introduced biometric attendance for all of its officers, staff members and sanitary workers. Biometric machines have been installed at 91 offices and field units of the Corporation. Of the total 93 machines, purchased at a cost of ₹9.37 lakh, two have been kept on standby.

The machines have been installed at all reporting sections of sanitary workers, junior engineer offices, main office, zonal offices, lorry shed, water head works, and at the Ariyamangalam compost yard. Similarly, 11 urban primary health centres and mother and child health care units have also been brought under the new e-roster system.

Further, the machines are based on ‘Aadhaar Authentication’ (fingerprint and iris-based validation). Details of all 2,147 officers and employees of the Corporation have been synchronised with the machines along with their Aadhaar number. To enable the implementation of the e-attendance project, all employees of the Corporation were required to obtain Aadhaar cards.

“The system is working well. Officers, clerical staff members and workers report on time to mark attendance. The issue of late coming has been addressed to a great extent,” said Corporation Commissioner N. Ravichandran.

Since it was Aadhaar enabled, supervisory officers can get the attendance details of employees easily. A centralised monitoring facility has also been created. Besides, the system has enabled the personnel department to maintain the attendance records of employees in a more efficient and transparent way, he pointed out.

The biometric machines have been provided with the work schedule of all employees. For instance, the duty hours of employees in the main office is between 9.30 am and 5.30 pm. However, the work schedule of junior engineers, water head employees, sanitary workers varies. An employee can avail an hour’s permission thrice a month. And any late coming by an hour thrice a month, the machine will mark half a day absent.

Biometric attendance has been taken as the base for preparing the salary. While a few employees and sanitary workers have complained that machines did not recognise their thumb impression, the problem will be solved in a few days, Mr. Ravichandran said.

The e-attendance system will be made compulsory from May 1.

Source:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/incomplete-service-lanes-irk-residents-and-commuters/article18212369.ece