A small change in the system proposed to be introduced in Government and PSU offices which otherwise should have been in practice couple of years ago, looks as if aimed at officiousness in the hitherto prevalent system of marking attendance mostly by proxy and very often giving wrong timings of reporting and leaving . That cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.
It is disappointing that a number of Government offices and departments have still not registered themselves for using Aadhaar Enabled Bio- metric Attendance System. It is despite repeated directions from the Chief Secretary and Commissioner Secretary to General Administration Department. Is ensuring punctuality of Government employees anything unwarranted or aimed at some imposition of arbitrary restrictions?
There are other departments like Jammu and Kashmir Police Department despite having registered themselves for the said method, have failed to use the Bio-metric Attendance system in utter disregard to the directives of the Government. Governor’s directives in this regard have resulted in various circulars having been issued to adopt the new simple but most transparent system but it is surprising that the compliance levels are far below the expected response. Old habits die hard but the attitude of indifference from most of the defaulting departments does not appeal to reason.
Since Government employees of all ranks are public servants who are paid from the public money , any deviation from the terms and conditions of employment unilaterally indulged in by an employee of whichever rank, renders one liable for suitable action and to start with, withholding payment of monthly salaries to those, who have been proved to willfully trying to obfuscate the implementation of revised method of marking attendance , should result in cent percent compliance and should be enforced forthwith.
The revised system of attendance was slated to be implemented in 2014 and 2016 at the behest of Governor’s rule during the intermittent period but the directives were not implemented by the State Government for reasons not known . However, there needs to be a firm resolve to make the Aadhaar Enabled Bio-metric Attendance system a complete success and the State administration must ensure its compliance in letter and spirit.