Delhi bureaucrats under attendance watch, but biometric machines have a strange issue

Following this, the government made biometric attendance mandatory for all employees deployed across its departments, including additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries, secretaries and heads of departments. All officers and staff, including top bureaucrats, were asked to punch in at 9.30 am and punch out at 6 pm. They were also told that action would be taken against those who arrived late, failed to mark their attendance or left early.

Sources said the strict implementation of biometric attendance has not gone down well with several officials and staff, and in some departments, staff may have allegedly tried to “damage the machine by sprinkling or pouring water in the machine”.

The matter was discussed during a meeting of officers held by the department recently.

After receiving frequent complaints from several district offices and institutions that the devices installed on their premises were malfunctioning, the department carried out an inspection.

“During the meeting, the in-charges of several district offices and homes/institutions reported that the biometric attendance devices… were frequently malfunctioning. The Superintendent, Caretaking Branch (CTB), informed that repeated complaints… are being received from various offices… During inspections carried out by the service engineer, water ingress was found inside several biometric devices despite there being no nearby water source or plumbing,” read the minutes of the meeting.

The minutes also said that the circumstances gave rise to a reasonable apprehension that certain devices may have been “deliberately damaged”.

“…several district offices, homes and institutions were not submitting attendance reports regularly… and whenever asked, they complained of device malfunction. The inspection, however, portrays different reasons… We don’t know who tried to damage the devices, but it is clear that it is deliberate because it is not one machine. It has been found in several offices…,” said an official.

Officials said attendance reports are also submitted to the office of the minister concerned, as well as to the General Administration Department (GAD) and the Chief Secretary.

The issue has exposed a broader problem with the government’s push for biometric attendance: not every official spends the day behind a desk.

Officials said staff of the Social Welfare, Labour and WCD departments are involved in field work, as these departments oversee the implementation of welfare schemes on the ground.

“Because of this, while some are not able to mark their attendance on the biometric system… some try to take benefit of it… The department has decided to explore the feasibility of implementing a mobile-based Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system integrated with the Face RD Application and real-time geolocation, particularly for officials performing field duties,” said a senior official.

Officials said that in-charges of several district offices and homes/institutions had reported practical difficulties in preparing attendance strictly on the basis of biometric records. These included the nature of field duties performed by certain officials and the frequent malfunctioning of biometric devices at some locations.

“The IT Branch has been approached to examine the technical feasibility and submit its recommendations to the Social Welfare department,” said the official.

Officials said that all departments have to daily submit attendance reports of their staff to their heads. The CM, while seeking a monthly attendance report indicating the average time of arrival of each official, had directed the GAD to compile a daily attendance report and submit it to the Chief Secretary by 12 pm every day.

A few months ago, the Chief Secretary had also strictly warned officials to take biometric attendance seriously and mark their attendance, failing which strict disciplinary action would be taken. Further, show-cause notices have been issued to some officers and staff deployed in different departments for not adhering to the guidelines.