Story of Making Public Servant Punctual Attendance:
An Aadhaar enabled Attendance System
Using new technology to solve an age-old challenge of public service punctuality and attendance- Aadhaar enabled attendance systems implemented in government offices as many as 642 across the country are yielding results. Attendance.gov.in is a website, launched in July 2015 to keep a record of the attendance of Government employees on a real-time basis. Initially this initiative started with implementation of a common Biometric Attendance System (BAS) in the central government offices located in Delhi and now covering all offices across the country.
The Challenge
Government offices are infamous for people not coming to work on time. All this may change now, thanks to a new initiative by the government. The slick new portal - Attendance.gov.in - will keep a realtime tab on all the attendance records of government officials.
As part of the 'Digital India' program, the government has implemented a common Biometric Attendance System (BAS) in the Central Government Offices (Agencies) located in Delhi to begin with and now made compulsory for all offices across the country.. Under the new attendance system, the employees would be able to mark their attendance using biometric cards in their offices. According to information available on the attendance web portal, central government organisations have registered themselves for the same. The following agencies were being targeted initially: Ministry departments of the central agencies, Autonomous Central Government bodies, institutions and offices and Central Public Sector Units.
The Solution
The entire system is based on using Aadhaar cards for registering an employee and the 6-digit attendance ID is generated based on the person's Aadhaar number. The attendance ID gets active after it gets a clearance from the UIDAI and then activated by the concerned nodal officer. The Aadhar card is compulsory for enrolling and special camps will be run to ensure all officials have a card, which incidentally was a brainchild of the last government.
The website has a clean look with easy navigation facility. There is a feature that allows looking up a particular employee by name, provided one knows his ID and organisation he/ she works for.
The only possible pitfall would be the seamless internet connection required for realtime updates. The government is looking to counter the problem with wi-fi on NICNET/broadband and SIM based GSM connectivity on tablets.
The Results
Central Government employees seem to be on their toes and are spending extra time in their offices ever since the Aadhaar enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) was launched in September 2014.
An analysis of the last three months show that employees are spending nearly twenty minutes extra in office every day.
If this is converted into man-days with an average of 8.5 hours per working day, the gain is equivalent to an additional workforce of almost 1,900 employees every single day.
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