Govt directs medical institutions to implement biometric attendance

Increasing absenteeism among faculty and doctors at medical colleges is affecting health care and academic functions, prompting the National Medical Commission (NMC) to direct all private and government medical institutions to strictly implement biometric attendance.

All faculty, demonstrators, tutors and senior residents would now have to mark their attendance by Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS), which will be thoroughly reviewed by the medical education regulator on a daily basis.

This comes in the backdrop of many colleges in states not being transparent in marking attendance, affecting patient- care and the academic calendar.

“NMC is now regularly monitoring the attendance database of the medical colleges, with the aim is to improve the medical education system. This system is to inculcate punctuality and discipline in faculties, senior residents, tutors and demonstrators,” said an NMC official requesting anonymity.

NMC secretary Dr Sandhya Bhullar has written to all the medical colleges directing them to implement the Aadhaar based attendance system.

“It is mandatory for medical colleges to get registration of faculty, residents and tutors under the new attendance system. Medical colleges should install the AEBAS devices in sufficient number as per need and each device should be connected with the WiFi for seamless marking of attendance. Any glitches, fault and damage or shutting of machines should be addressed immediately so that the data related to the biometric can be obtained. NMC will seriously view if biometric attendance data is not generated continuously without any reasons for more than two days,” Bhullar said in a letter to medical colleges.

“All the staff should mark their attendance twice, i.e. when they come to medical college and when they leave the college after work. Government medical colleges/standalone PG institutes and private medical must follow their respective rules for taking action against the employees for not following official timings in marking the attendance,” said the letter.

A health ministry official said, “The aim is to stop corruption in medical education and bring more transparency in the system. Recently, the health ministry has taken action against many small medical colleges which were flouting rules.”

“Colleges have been directed to install 16 cameras at key locations for monitoring. This will allow us to have a real time watch on the operations of the medical colleges such as attendance of the faculty, patients coming in OPD, etc,” said the official.

There are over 650 medical colleges teaching MBBS with around 96,600 faculties and 27,000 senior residents. Queries emailed to health ministry did not elicit any response.