Colleges yet to link biometric attendance with Aadhaar

Shiv Kumar Sharma

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Tribune News Service

Yamunanagar, April 6

Most of the government-aided colleges in the district have failed to implement the Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system for teaching and non-teaching staff.

According to information, the Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, had issued instructions to all principals of the government-aided colleges of the state on March 20 to purchase Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance machines within a week. The instructions further stated that the biometric attendance would be mandatory from April 1.

Sources, however, said that the instructions were not being followed in most of the colleges.

“A section of the teachers has been marking manual attendance. Hence, the teachers are not mentally prepared to accept the binding of biometric system,” said a member of the management of a college.

Another member of the management said that another annoying aspect was the minimum stay of five-and-a-half hours on the campus.

He said: “The biometric system can’t be successful till it is linked with verification of the salary bills of the colleges.”

Principals of several colleges said that they had placed the order for purchasing the Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance machines.

Dr Shailesh Kapoor, principal, Mukand Lal National College, Yamunanagar, and Dr PK Bajpai, principal, Maharaja Agrasain College, Jagadhri, said that they had already placed the order for the machines.

Dr Kapoor said that they had started marking attendance on normal biometric machines until they got the Aadhaar-enabled machines.

Similarly, Dr Mandeep Singh, principal, Guru Nanak Khalsa College, said that they had placed the order and started the attendance normal biometric machines since April 1.

On the other hand, Dr Ramesh Kumar, general secretary, MLN Institutes, said that they had directed the principals of their colleges to implement the directions of the government strictly.