Ghaziabad: GDA cracks down on staff who come in late

The top brass of the GDA have asked the officers and staff to ensure strict compliance with office timings and have also directed that there should be strict adherence to the biometric attendance system

Ghaziabad:

The main gates of the Ghaziabad Development Authority were shut at about 10.15am on Wednesday, and nearly 40 basic staff waited outside before they were allowed entry. They were allowed to enter only after a list of their names and departments was prepared. (Sakib Ali/HT PHOTO)

The Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has decided to take stern action on employees who turn up late for work and has also directed the finance department to hold a day’s salary in case an employee is found coming late to office, officials aware of the matter said.

The top brass of the GDA have asked the officers and staff to ensure strict compliance with office timings and have also directed that there should be strict adherence to the biometric attendance system.

The main gates of the authority were shut at about 10.15am on Wednesday, and nearly 40 basic staff waited outside before they were allowed entry. They were allowed to enter only after a list of their names and departments was prepared.

“All the 40 staff were then allowed entry and attended work. The GDA vice-chairperson has directed the finance department to hold a day’s salary for them. After this incident, latecomers have started adhering to office timings and generally get in by 10am to 10.15am. Further, they are regularly complying with the biometric attendance within the scheduled office opening time. The time for exiting and punching the biometric exit is a minimum of 5pm or later,” said Rudresh Shukla, assistant engineer and media coordinator, GDA.

GDA officials said that the vice-chairperson is regularly monitoring the attendance of staff and has directed the departmental heads to monitor timings and ensure strict compliance of discipline and attendance.

“The action on Wednesday had a positive effect and all employees are now coming on time. The officers and departmental heads are regular in attending the office, and so far, no complaint against the officers has come to light,” Shukla added.

According to officials, compliance in connection with regular official work and timely attendance is required since GDA faces a shortage of officers and staff, and this causes delay in carrying out routine work, construction, and activities of enforcement, among others.

According to official data, the authority currently has 65 vacancies for assistant engineers (civil) and 25 vacancies for assistant engineers (electricity), respectively. This is against the sanctioned 91 and 21 posts. Similarly, the authority has five vacant posts for superintending engineers against the sanctioned number of eight posts.

The authority during its board meeting on August 5 had put forward a proposal and cleared another for hiring of retired government officers to fill up vacant posts. The proposal stated that against the sanctioned 180 posts for different officers, the authority has a current deployment of only 68 officers while there is an immediate requirement of 41 more.