Iris scanners to keep eye on attendance at DAVV
Absenteeism and proxy attendance at Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya’s Nalanda campus in Indore just got tougher. The DAVV administration installed six biometric attendance machines at various departments on Tuesday.
Absenteeism and proxy attendance at Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya’s Nalanda campus in Indore just got tougher. The DAVV administration installed six biometric attendance machines at various departments on Tuesday.
The varsity spent around Rs 12,000 each on the iris scanners to bring transparency in attendance and boost productivity among senior officials and non-teaching staff. There are 347 permanent employees in administrative departments at Nalanda campus.
“We decided to introduce the biometric system to monitor absenteeism and to streamline overall functioning of the university from Wednesday itself,” vice-chancellor Narendra Dhakad said.
The biometric system is already in place at the university teaching department (UTD).
Most of the employees upset with the decision to install biometric machines
Understandably, most of the employees are upset with the decision to install these machines. “With installation of biometric machines, the university has kicked off another controversy. We have learnt that senior officials posted at the administrative campus is exempted from marking attendance through biometric machines,” DAVV employees’ association president Anil Yadav said. “It’ll only widen the rift between employees and officials as the university is running despite staff crunch for last 10 years. We are somehow managing all non-teaching activities and no complaint was registered till date.”
The association’s former president Mahendra Shrivastava wondered why senior officials were exempted from the new rule. “You need such arrangements where employees remain absent from their work during duty hours, but here everyone report on time,” he said.
But Dhakad asserted nobody was exempted from marking their attendance through biometric machines. “All senior officials and employees need to mark their attendance through the new system. ... The new arrangement will increase productivity as it will help to rein in those who remain absent from work during duty hours,” he said.