Patna: Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) has prepared a detailed project report on biometric attendance system for its labourers, a senior PMC official has confirmed.

Biharsharif, which managed to clinch a better rank than Patna in the 2017 Swachhata Sarvekshan rankings, already has this facility in place for its sanitation workers. While Patna got the 262nd position in the last Swachhata Sarvekshan out of a total of 434 cities which took part in the survey, Biharsharif ranked 147th.

"The biometric attendance system has to be introduced for sanitation workers in all 75 wards of the corporation. Under the system, all regular and contract sanitation workers must punch their cards twice a day to mark their attendance. Initially, Aadhaar-based biometric attendance system will not be launched but later, the system will be made Aadhaar-based. The corporation also has decided to cut salaries of sanitation workers on the basis of their biometric attendance," said a senior official, wishing anonymity.

The official added: "As of now, PMC has biometric attendance machines only for officials working in its circles. The system is still not in place for the sanitation staff. Some biometric machines, which are at PMC offices to maintain the attendance of the officials, are also lying defunct."

According to corporation officials, the biometric attendance system, once launched, will be able to check absenteeism. "Starting the biometric attendance system is the need of the hour. This can check proxy attendance apart from revealing when workers report to work on a daily basis. There have been many complaints from residents regarding the absence of sanitation staff in their ward but so far, we have no mechanism to check that," said the PMC official.

Sources said the proposal to start the biometric attendance system for PMC workers was approved in August last year in the PMC's empowered committee meeting, which mayor Sita Sahu chaired and PMC commissioner and other standing committee members and attended.