LIT babus in love with defunct biometric attendance machine

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, January 22

With biometric attendance machine lying defunct for the last two years at the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) office, staff of the LIT has been marking their attendance manually and spending quality time.

In a complaint lodged with the Punjab Government (Department of Local Government) Arvind Shama, secretary, Council of RTI activists, alleged that a few employees and officials have vested interest in keeping the machine non-functional.

“Employees coming from nearby places have a tendency of coming late in the morning and leaving early in the evening. Staff residing out of the city are in favour of manual attendance as it can be manipulated,” said the complainant.

Taking note of the complaint, the Directorate of the Local Government Department (Memo No S2-DLG-TSC-2018/66204-5 dated November 20, 2018) had asked the Regional Deputy Director, Local Bodies (DDLB), Punjab (Ludhiana), to take necessary action in this regard and send the action taken report to the Directorate.

In a reminder sent to the Local Government, Sharma said the Regional Deputy Director of Local Bodies (Ludhiana) has not taken the complaint regarding non-functional biometric attendance machine seriously and no follow up action seems to have been taken either.

He added that information obtained under the RTI Act revealed erratic pattern of attendance of a number of employees and officials, especially those residing at places other than Ludhiana.

“Those visiting the LIT office for their routine work often complain that dealing clerks/assistants and at times officials are found missing from their seats during working hours,” Sharma added.

It is pertinent to mention that the Directorate of Local Government has issued an office letter (No 53279-94 dated September 11, 2017, to the Commissioners of Municipal Corporations and Regional Deputy Directors across the state for installing “Aadhaar enabled biometric attendance system” (AEBAS) by the end of September 2017.

The urban local bodies (Municipal Corporations and Improvement Trusts) were also directed to procure AEBAS machines from the government e-marketplace (GeM) portal.