Biometrics Boosting Indian Governments Productivity
A biometric time-keeping scheme introduced for India’s central government employees last September has already contributed to a significant rise in attendance, according to an official study.
An analysis of the last three months since the Aadhaar enabled Biometric Attendance System was implemented shows that employees are spending nearly 20 minutes extra in office every day.
Given the average of 8.5 hours per working day, the increase is equivalent to an additional workforce of almost 1,900 employees each day.
"Considering that over 47,000 employees are using it now, an average gain of 20-minutes per day means an approximate gain of 16,000 man-hours,” a government official told India Today.
Launched in September, the system can also track employees’ attendance at work in real time through a website, attendance.gov.in.
The real-time information is hoped to improve transparency, particularly as the system will be able to track employees in outlying offices as well as central departments.
According to the website, the average clocking in time is 9.28am, and the leaving time is 17.46pm.
Some 720 million citizens out of the targeted 1.2 billion have so far been enrolled in India’s Aadhaar ID programme, with the rest targeted to the part of the system by March 2015.