Telangana Cops Scrap Biometric Attendance

 Hyderabad: Telangana Police is slowly scrapping the use of biometric attendance systems as a number of personnel are getting outside-station assignments and are being marked absent. Further, the maintenance of data has proven to be cumbersome.

Presently, the attendance devices are not working in 90 per cent of the police stations due to technical reasons.

In 2016, biometric systems were installed in all police stations in Hyderabad commissionerate. The aim was to make all staffers visit the police stations regularly and meet complainants. Specialised reception counters were set up in all stations to address urgent issues of victims.

The attendance systems’ usage declined over the last few years due to lack of technical maintenance.

"Gradually, the usage of biometric went down after the staff were transferred from one police station to another place, technical glitches, workload on staff handling unscheduled programmes and assignments. A report has been submitted to higher officials on difficulties,” officials said.

Officials said the biometric system does not work when officials have outside-station assignments and it is not possible for the already overworked force to travel back and forth to mark attendance. The regular maintenance of data has also been challenging.

An Inspector in the Hyderabad Commissionerate said now a roll call for all staff is conducted daily and based on that tasks are assigned. The Balanagar Police Station, which was constructed recently with the latest equipment, does not have a biometric system. The biometric system was installed in the old building and has been in disuse since then.