Weeding Out Ghost Faculty: Govt docs stung by NMC attendance norm, GPS system
Hyderabad: As the National Medical Commission (NMC) has mandated face-based Aadhaar authentication for attendance and also GPS tracking to arrest ghost faculty in the medical colleges, the government doctors’ fraternity is unhappy with the proposal and demanded withdrawal of such a move.
Starting from May 1, the fingerprint based devices for attendance will be discontinued and the face-based Aadhaar authentication will be used for marking the attendance of the faculty. Earlier, the medical colleges used to have Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance (AEBA) to record the attendance. Now the faculty members will have to install face based Aadhaar Authentication application on their mobile phone. The NMC has also asked the colleges to provide GPS coordinates of key locations of the colleges so as to ensure the attendance is recorded within 100 metre radius of these locations.
The Telangana Teaching Government Doctors Association (TTGDA) Secretary general Dr Kiran Madala said, “We would like to clarify that the NMC has proposed a face-based attendance system utilising wall-mounted devices or a mobile application. At no point has it officially mandated geo-tagging, which, to our understanding, is not currently implemented in India. We strongly oppose geo-tagging as it raises serious privacy concerns for individuals. Introducing such measures without public discourse or consensus is inappropriate, especially when more pressing issues affecting teaching doctors remain unaddressed.”
The faculty wanted the Commission to address issues concerning the government medical colleges and the policies about the faculty. Dr Kiran said that the NMC should focus on the transfer policies, peripheral medical college allowances and faculty recruitment and regularisation. “The Commission should focus on improving infrastructure and facilities. Focusing solely on attendance reform, while ignoring these long-standing core issues, is both demoralising and counterproductive. Government teaching doctors across Telangana have consistently shown their commitment to patient care and medical education. The establishment and successful functioning of 25 new government medical colleges in just three years would not have been possible without the unwavering dedication of our faculty. We sincerely urge all government and health officials to prioritise the resolution of these long-pending matters, rather than introducing reforms that are not aligned with national practices and risk undermining the morale of the medical teaching community,” he urged.
