By IANS,
New Delhi : Hoping to ensure timely attendance of employees, Home Minister P. Chidambaram Tuesday inaugurated a Biometric Attendance Control System (BACS) that has been installed in the offices of the ministry at North Block, Jaisalmer House and Lok Nayak Bhawan.
Taking the lead in ensuring punctuality, Chidambaram arrived at 9 a.m. at the North Block and registered his attendance by placing his finger on the scanner.
Chidambaram had mooted the idea of installing biometric scanners a few months ago after he noticed growing instances of officials not reporting to work on time and leaving office early.
“Under this system, all officials of the ministry will be registering their arrivals in the morning and departure for the day,” said a senior ministry official.
A ministry official told IANS that any employee registering three late arrivals in a month will have his or her casual leave slashed by a day.
The home ministry has nearly 5,000 employees in its offices, while the North Block headquarters alone has a strength of about 2,500 apart from security personnel who are stationed on duty.
Employees are expected to reach office at 9 a.m. sharp, and put their index finger on the scanner, which will identify their fingerprint, flash their employee code and name and register their arrival. They will have to go through the same drill when leaving for the day at 5.30 p.m.