Guwahati, Sept. 27: State government employees who are habitual latecomers to office, beware!

The Assam government has decided to introduce biometric-based attendance system at state government offices in a bid to keep tabs on latecomers and absentees.

An official source told The Telegraph that Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system will be introduced first at the Assam Secretariat in Dispur and will gradually be implemented at other state government offices.

The source said a few days ago, the secretariat administration department, which looks after administration of the Assam Secretariat, had written to all the departments at the secretariat to submit the details of their staff for the implementation of the new system.

The state government had taken the decision by taking a cue from the Centre, which is implementing the system at its offices across the country. This system is also enforced in Jharkhand, introduced this year.

The system is likely to improve punctuality of the secretariat staff, as it is a common complaint of the people that a section of secretariat staff shows up late for work and leave early.

A few months ago, additional chief secretary M.G.V.K. Bhanu had to warn the employees of stern action if they turned up late for work.

In the new system, an employee has to enter his or her Aadhaar number, along with their biometric data (fingerprint) for marking attendance. Using fingerprints will ensure that employees turn up physically and do not use proxies.

This will help in real-time online monitoring of the working hours of employees by their superiors.

"It will bring greater accountability to the staff in terms of work hours by ensuring that the employees and officials come to their office on time and do not leave early," said Bhanu.

"Since the process of enrolment for Aadhaar card in Assam is yet to start, barring three districts, the unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) had recently conducted a special drive for the enrolment of 3,000-odd Secretariat staff for the purpose of introduction of the attendance system," the source said. The process of Aadhaar enrolment is expected to start next year after the ongoing National Register of Citizens (NRC) update is completed. An updated NRC will be published by January next year.

"The implementation of the attendance system is expected to start in other state government offices after the Aadhaar enrolment is completed in the state," he said.

The source said the system could also mean a cut in salary in case of loss in working hours.