Biometric attendance system for college faculty to be modified

The government is planning to speed up the implementation and bring in certain changes in the biometric face recognition system of attendance for teachers in government degree colleges after large-scale absenteeism at a Kolar college came to light during the Lokayukta Justice Y Bhaskar Rao’s recent visit to the institution.

The pilot project started in February was aimed to cover 183 colleges and ensure centralised monitoring of teachers’  attendance.

According to the Department of Collegiate Education, funds had been released  in March to 27 colleges in Bangalore Urban and Rural districts, five in Mysore, 32 in Mangalore, 81 in Dharwad and 38 in Gulbarga.

As of now, however, only 45 colleges in the state have centralised biometric system in place with some of the other colleges having an offline system that does not allow centralised monitoring. 

“Many of these colleges, apart from the 45, have bought different machines from other sources and not from the authorised company implementing the system. Now, we will have to think of the possibility of having the same machines installed in all the colleges,” said B L Bhagyalakshmi, director, Department of Collegiate Education.

The department is also collecting information about the implementation of the programme to ascertain what can be done next.

“We have asked the colleges with the system to give us feedback on various points like the impact it has had and how colleges have utilised the allocated funds. The department will also speed up the process of putting the system in place in all colleges and releasing more funds if necessary,” said Bhagyalakshmi.

Resistance from teachers

Even though it has been nearly six months since the system was launched, there is still strong resistance to the move from teachers. Well placed sources told Deccan Herald that the plan to seriously implement the system was in a state of limbo for quite some time due to various other reasons too.

“The Assembly elections came in between and, the plan was put on the hold. With the Lokayukta recently discovering rampant absenteeism at the college in Kolar, the implementation plan has been revived,” said the source.

The Lokayukta has now asked the department to put the system in place in all the government colleges as soon as possible. “As of now the department has conveyed to us that it is in the process of introspection and analysis. We are also waiting for its internal report on the matter and a direction,” said Hari Prasad Shanbhog, founder and managing director, Ipomo, the company that puts the biometric face recognition system in place.  

Following the Kolar incident, the department has reiterated various steps to check such absenteeism and improve administration.

The measures include teachers’ participatory role in the administration of the college besides performing their duties, guidelines on working hours, maintenance of movement register of teachers, submission of a weekly report by principals of colleges to the joint directors of each region for their scrutiny, which in turn will be consolidated and given to the director.