Srinagar: It would be recalled that in the short periods of Governors 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 for marking of attendance, to ensure that employees of all Departments and Organizations duly mark their arrival and departure from office on all working days in the month. However, these directions were not implemented.
When the Governor’s Rule was recently imposed in the State, he had held a meeting with Chief Secretary and all Administrative Secretaries, in the State Civil Secretariat, on 20th June 2018. Among the various directions which he had given to the Chief Secretary was to initiate immediate action to ensure that Biometric Attendance Systems were installed in every office all over the State and take strict action to ensure that all functionaries who are incharge of offices/field units from village level upwards to the State Secretariat, know the exact time at which their employees arrived for duty and the time at which they left office in the evening.
As the Daily Attendance Reports being furnished by the State General Administration Department to the Raj Bhavan are still showing considerable gaps, the Governor personally reviewed this matter Saturday in a meeting with Hilal Ahmad Parray, Commissioner, General Administration Department, and Sougat Biswas, Secretary, Information Technology Department.
Biswas informed the Governor that while very inadequate information was available when the Governor had given his initial directions in the matter, considerable progress had since been achieved and, as on date, 3,07,674 employees in the State had got themselves registered on the Biometric Attendance System and, side by side, vigorous efforts were afoot to fully verify and finalize the total number of Government employees in the State, which is stated to be around 4.5 lakh.
As regards the installation of Biometric Attendance Systems, Biswas informed Governor that while a total ground survey has yet to be completed, there are 1990 Government offices in the State of which 1153 have to-date installed Biometric Attendance Systems and action is underway to install such systems in the remaining 837 offices.
Governor has desired to hold weekly review meetings till the entire task of installing the Biometric Attendance Systems in every office is completed and every employee starts marking attendance at the time of arrival/ departure. In this context, it is relevant to state that in his original instructions to the Chief Secretary and all the Administrative Secretaries, Governor had also directed that all Daily Wage/Casual Workers who are serving in any organization/institution located in the rural areas or who are performing watch and ward duties in remote/difficult areas should be enabled to mark their attendance manually which should be verified and counter-signed by the supervisory officials as per a laid down procedure. He has further directed that it shall be the duty of every Controlling Officer to ensure that the record of leave granted to employees and details of their approved tour programs is promptly uploaded on the Biometric Attendance Systems so that the Supervisory officers are able to know, at a glance, the number of functionaries who are absent from duty on a given day.
Governor has advised Parray, Commissioner Secretary GAD, to most strictly ensure marking of in/out attendance in the State Civil Secretariat.
