Hyderabad: Despite introducing the Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system (AEBAS), the GHMC has not been able to corruption in marking of attendance among sanitary staff completely. It has managed to filter double entries and duplicate attendance but has failed in eliminating fake staff.
The civic body said it was saving Rs 5 crore every month and Rs 60 crore annually by preventing fraudulent attendance claims by using the AEBAS, but not fake workers who are appointed by sanitary field assistants (SFAs). These personnel are mostly the family members and relatives of SFAs.
Most SFAs are said to be hand-in-glove with the ground level staff and the salaries to the staff they appoint costs the corporation Rs 50 crore. The GHMC has 948 SFAs.
Highly placed sources 21 workers, divided into groups of seven, should report to each SFA. The corporation pays Rs 16,000 per sanitation worker including Employees’ Pr-ovident Fund (EPF). The SFAs have been provided with hand-held machines containing Aadhaar details of each worker, to mark attendance.
The change from manual marking of attendance to AEBAS has helped the corporation remove duplicate names and registering of fake attendance, where SFAs used to manipulate attendance data and draw money for salaries even when the workers are not present.
However, the corporati-on could not get rid of fa-ke staff who have been enrolled into the AEBAS but are not seen working on the ground. The SFAs withdraw their salaries and share it on a 50:50 ra-tio. Sources said if these irregularities are curb-ed, the GHMC would save more than Rs 50 crore.
A senior GHMC official, admitting to such irregularities, said, “the civic body spends Rs 450 crore to pay salaries to outsourcing employees. According to a preliminary reports, about Rs 110 crore was being misused annually prior to the introduction of AEBAS.”
“The corporation will now verify the old data with the current records in order to check the irregularities. We will scrutinise all recruitments after introducing AEBAS. All ineligible persons would be taken off the rolls,” the official said. He said the civic body had termed it as data purification programme.
The official said that it had come to their notice that the SFAs were registering the attendance at two different locations, one outside their jurisdiction. He said that GHMC from now on would use techonology and monitor the location of the SFAs and workers.
Geo-fence to track location of sanitation workers
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has decided to ‘geo-fence’ the jurisdiction of each sanitary field assistant (SFA) ensure the cleanliness in their area of operation and prevent irregularities.
After geo-fencing the sanitation workers cannot work in any other circle or location, which has been the practice now.
It has come to the notice of corporation officials that several SFAs have been forcing their workers to work in specific locations and keep other areas untidy. The corporation officials said that the civic body would earmark the area of operation for each group of seven members.
The groups would be asked not to cross the geo-fenced area. In case they violate the order, the SFA concerned will be held responsible. The civic body would deduct from their salaries if the workers do not work in their respective zones.
“Geo-fencing is aimed at not only keeping the premises clean and but also to curb irregularities indulged by SFAs and ground level staff,” said a senior GHMC official. He said this move would not only enable the corporation to track the location of sanitation workers but also help it weed out fake workers who take salaries but are not seen working on the ground.
The GHMC official said that a consultant will be selected to demarcate the jurisdiction of each group. He said that location will be monitored by a special team from the command control room in the GHMC headquarters.
