Ensuring punctuality of employees still a distant dream
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, July 29: Large number of Government departments have yet not registered themselves for using Aadhaar Enabled Bio-metric Attendance System (AEBAS) despite repeated directions from the Chief Secretary and Commissioner Secretary to Government General Administration Department thereby establishing that ensuring punctuality of employees is least priority for them.
Moreover, many departments including Jammu and Kashmir Police despite having registered themselves for the Aadhaar Enabled Bio-metric Attendance System have failed to start marking of attendance of employees through this most transparent method in utter disregard to the directives of the Government.
Ever since the imposition of Governor’s Rule in Jammu and Kashmir on June 20, 2018 thrust is being laid on use of Aadhaar Enabled Bio-metric Attendance System in all the Government departments across the State.
On the directions of the Governor N N Vohra, numerous circular and verbal instructions have been issued to Administrative Secretaries and Heads of the Departments for adopting this method so as to ensure 100% punctuality in the offices. However, much to the disappointment of the Governor and the Chief Secretary the compliance level has remained low.
This can be gauged from the information available on the web portal vis-a-vis attendance in J&K Government offices being maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) on the directions of the Governor.
Only 252 Government departments/organizations have registered themselves for Aadhaar Enabled Bio-metric Attendance System till date although several deadlines for compliance have already expired. “The compliance from large number of other departments is still awaited”, official sources said.
What to talk of those departments/organizations and their field level wings which have failed to register themselves for AEBAS, even many Government departments and organizations, which have registered themselves for AEBAS, have yet not started marking of attendance of employees on the system.
Moreover, there are several other departments which have registered minimal number of employees on AEBAS than the actual number of employees without any plausible reason.
In the list of Government departments and organizations which have registered themselves for AEBAS but actually not started marking of attendance are Jammu and Kashmir Police, several wings of the Power Development Department, Irrigation and Flood Control Department, Public Health Engineering Department, offices of Deputy Commissioners, offices of Agriculture and Horticulture Departments, Jammu and Kashmir Institute of Management, Public Administration and Rural Development and J&K State Accountability Commission etc.
As far as Jammu and Kashmir Police, which has maximum number of field offices across the State, is concerned, only Anti-Hijacking Wing Jammu has shown full compliance to the orders of the Government.
Education Department Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir High Court and Dental College Jammu are among the list of those departments and organizations which have shown registration of far less than the actual number of employees working there on Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System.
The Education Department Jammu has shown registration of 61 employees on AEBAS while as Education Department Rajouri has shown registration of over 6000 employees. Similarly, Dental College Jammu has shown registration of 155 employees only. “This clearly indicates that there is no 100% compliance to the directives of the Government even from those departments which have registered themselves for AEBAS”, sources pointed out.
“All these instances clearly indicate that punctuality of employees is still a distant dream”, sources further said, adding “apart from the non-serious approach of the employees even concerned Heads of the Departments are also responsible for hurdles in making optimum use of Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System”.
It is pertinent to mention here that in the short periods of Governor’s Rule during 2014 and 2016, Governor N N Vohra had given directions for Biometric Attendance System (BAS) equipment to be installed in all Government offices to ensure that employees of all departments and organizations duly mark their arrival and departure from offices on all working days in the month. However, these directions were not implemented.
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