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HMDA’s biometric attendance system goes for a toss
If the staff attendance register of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) is to be believed, at least 10 per cent of the employees do not attend office, but draw salary with impunity.
Hyderabad: If the staff attendance register of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) is to be believed, at least 10 per cent of the employees do not attend office, but draw salary with impunity.
An RTI application filed by The Hans India on the attendance by HMDA officials exposes this irregularity. According to HMDA’s biometric attendance register for June 2016, at least 65 of the total 520 officials stayed away from office for the entire month.
Highlights:
- Officials claim that a few employees have been exempted from using the system But there is some discrepancy in giving exemption
- The timings of arrival and departure of some employees have been manually set
There are more than 100 staff members who were absent from office for more than 10 days at a stretch. There are hardly 30 per cent of the officials who have been sincerely following the biometric register.
The RTI query has not only revealed that the officials have remained absent from the office but also brought to the fore the HMDA administration’s partial attitude towards a few of its employees who continue to dodge the biometric system and get their attendance regularised.
According to the data furnished by HMDA under the RTI Act, it was found that the biometric attendance of these officials, who had been absent, was manually set as they came in at 10.30 am and left at 5 pm.
Strangely, the timing has remained the same for all 30 days of the month. Several senior officials refused to talk on the subject, saying these officials were from the Planning, Urban Forestry and HGCL departments and they had to move around the city for executing various works under HMDA.
The HMDA was reluctant to disclose information on their attendance record under RTI Act and denied providing the information to The Hans India, claiming it as internal data. The information was revealed on June 29, following the filing of a first appeal in which the First Appellant Authority, HMDA Secretary, N Madhusudhan (who was transferred a few days ago), instructed officials to provide the information on attendance to public.
A few have been exempted from using the mandatory biometric attendance at HMDA. Thet include a few HoDs, Metropolitan Commissioner, ORR Project Director, HMDA Secretary, Member Estates, Member Environment and two Planning Directors. Strangely, the biometric attendance system is compulsory for some other HoDs like Enforcement, Information Technology (IT), Engineering, and Accounts Departments.
It was found that the head of HMDA Engineering Department (Chief Engineer) remained absent for the entire month and the Accounts Department head and the Chief Accounts Officer (CAO) attended to only one day’s work in the June as per the biometric register.
The timings of the head of the Enforcement Cell, Deputy Superintendent of Police have been set at: in-time 10.30 am and out-time 5 pm as per the accepted schedules for the whole month.
Metropolitan Commissioner T Chiranjeevulu said they had given exemption to few employees working in the field work by marking their attendances on on-duty forms which are cleared and looked after by the respective heads of the department. “I will look into the matter and will see if there is anything wrong in it,” he said.
By: G Bharat Krishna
