Patna, Feb. 8: The state government doctors appear to have developed an allergy for biometric attendance system.
Two-and-a-half years after the system was introduced for doctors in Bihar, the health department has still not been able to ensure medics marked their presence in hospitals through the electronic time-attendance-recording devices.
While the doctors insisted that they would only follow the diktat if the system was made mandatory for all gazetted government employees, the department, too, seems to have succumbed to the pressure. In many cases, salaries of the doctors who defied the rules were released after being stopped for months.
According to sources, the system was introduced in 2009 to ensure doctors’ presence in government hospitals and to curb the practice of “proxy” attendance.
Incidentally, doctors across the state resisted the move because the Bihar State Health Society (BSHS) issued the instruction. The doctors’ contention was that the state health department, and not BSHS, employed the regular doctors.
A source in the department said the department had later issued directives but doctors have been incessantly protesting the move and they have not complied with the orders so far.
Bihar Health Services Association (BHSA), the body representing the government doctors in the state, has been protesting the order for the past two years on the grounds that it was “disrespectful” for the fraternity. The body demanded that the order should be cleared by the general administration department before being implemented.
“Why are only doctors being treated like this? If the government wants to correct the functioning of various departments, the same rule should be applicable to all gazetted officers of the state government. It seems that the government is biased against doctors,” said BHSA general secretary Ajay Kumar.
He added that before the government comes up with such rules, it should first fix the daily and weekly working hours of the doctors.
“At present, 4,200 doctors in the state, including those appointed on contract, are doing the work of 12,000 doctors under erratic condition and long duty hours.Under these conditions, the government’s priority is to reign in doctors by forcing biometric attendance system, rather than improving the service condition for us,” Kumar added.
Health secretary Sanjay Kumar, who also holds the charge of BSHS executive director, said the doctors’ protest against the attendance system was a “passing phase” and would be settled soon.
“Whenever a new system is introduced, there is resistance from some quarters. But things will stabilise very soon. The government is keen on sticking to the plan and all the district magistrates have been instructed to see that it is operational. The department is regularly monitoring its progress,” he told The Telegraph.
