Taking a serious note of the laxity in implementing the Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) and some employees coming late to work on a regular basis, the Union government has urged Ministries, organisations and departments to regularly monitor the attendance reports of their employees.
Calling for disciplinary action against those habitually coming late to work or leaving early, the Centre said that the data relating to punctuality and attendance of an employee should also be taken into account, while considering him/her for important assignments, trainings, deputations, and transfers or postings.
According to sources in the Southern Railway, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had on Saturday communicated to Secretaries of Ministries and departments that despite clear instructions, several employees had not registered their attendance in Biometric Attendance System (BAS) and some of them were coming late to work on a regular basis.
Laxity in implementation
After reviewing the functioning of AEBAS and taking a serious note of the laxity in implementation of the system, the Centre reiterated that the authorities concerned regularly monitor the attendance reports of their employees after downloading the same from the BAS portal.
Pointing out that the responsibility for ensuring punctuality in respect of the employees rested with the concerned Ministry or department or organisation, the advisory said all employees should mark their attendance using AEBAS without fail.
In case any employee had not registered on AEBAS, immediate steps should be taken to register his/her biometric data on the portal.
As regards Divyaang (differently abled) employees, the authorities were told to make appropriate arrangements for providing convenient and easily accessible machines for capturing biometrics.
Heads of Departments were told to sensitise their employees to adhere to the instructions relating to office hours, late attendance etc. “They should download the consolidated report from the portal on a regular basis and identify the defaulters. Habitual late attendance and early leaving of office should be viewed seriously and be essentially discouraged. Strict action against the defaulters may be initiated under the extant Government of India rules.”
Face authentication
The advisory also said that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had rolled out face-based authentication applications using Android- or lOS-based phones. The face authentication offered robust features like faster authentication, live location detection, geo-tagging, etc.
Nodal officers in the respective organisations were told to configure personal mobile policy in attendance portal for the employees and get the geo-coordinates fed into the entry locations of the office.
Citing earlier instructions, the DoPT said half-a-day’s Casual Leave (CL) should be debited for each day of late attendance, but late attendance up to an hour, on not more than two occasions in a month, and for justifiable reasons may be condoned by the competent authority.
“In addition to debiting CL (or Earned Leave, when no CL is available), disciplinary action may also be initiated against government servants coming to office habitually late as it amounts to ‘misconduct’ under the CCS(Conduct) Rules, 1964. Early leaving is also to be treated in the same manner as late coming,” the DoPT said.
Published - June 16, 2024 08:40 pm IST
