West Godavari tops in biometric attendance for staff

Rajahmundry: West Godavari stands ahead in implementation of Aadhaar enabled biometric system of attendance to government employees and teachers when compared with other districts in the state. Over 21,000 government employees from 70 departments register their attendance through biometric system twice in a day in the morning and in the evening. National Informatics Centre, New Delhi, has developed the software application for registration of biometric attendance.

Each employee has to give Aadhaar number and register his thumb impression on the device to register his or her attendance. This information goes online immediately and is available on ‘andhra.attendance.gov.in.’ Unlike the earlier practice, where it used to be a tough task to monitor which employee had attended the office at what time and how much time he or she spent at the office, this new system enables the district administration to monitor the attendance of employees in real time.

Each department has been allotted a domain and the department head will fix the timings of employees to arrive and leave the office in the morning and again in the evening. In case any official goes on camp to other place for inspection, he or she has to register their biometric attendance in any government office having the system to do so. The authorities have also started implementing biometric system of attendance to teachers working in government schools.

Nearly, 10,000 teachers exist in the district and installation of devices to register biometric attendance is underway in the schools at present and the exercise is likely to be completed in about ten to fifteen days. The NIC officials are also going to introduce the biometric attendance in schools and welfare hostels for both students and hostel staff soon after completion of teachers.

West Godavari NIC district information officer B.S.R. Sharma said, “We have started implementation of biometric system of attendance in the district six months ago and at present, all the government employees from several departments are registering it. West Godavari is the first district in the state to implement such a system for the entire state staff so far.”