DoPT Order on Late Attendance Enforcing Half-Day Casual Leave and Its Impact
F. No.11013/13/2023-Pers. Policy-A.III
Government of India
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
Department of Personnel and Training
Dated 15th June, 2024
OFFICE MEMORANDUM
Subject: Instructions regarding implementation of Aadhar Enable Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) for attendance of all Government employees, by various Ministries /Departments/ Organizations (MDOs)
Instructions have been issued by this Department from time to time for observing punctuality by the Government employees. Responsibility for ensuring punctuality in respect of their employees rests with the concerned Ministry/ Department/ Organization (MDO). In this regard, instructions on implementation of Aadhar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) by Ministries/Departments/Organizations (MDOs) have also been issued from time to time.
In its instructions issued by this Department vide OM of even number dated 23 June, 2023, all the MDOs were, inter alia, advised to ensure strict implementation of AEBAS and periodically monitor the marking of attendance to ensure punctuality. However, it has been observed that despite clear instructions, several employees are not registering their attendance in Biometric Attendance System (BAS) and some of the employees have been coming late on a regular basis.
MDOs will regularly monitor the attendance
2.The matter of strict implementation of AEBAS has recently been reviewed and taking a serious note of the laxity in implementation of AEBAS, it is hereby reiterated that all MDOs will regularly monitor the attendance reports of their employees after downloading the same from the portal (attendance.gov.in). The MDOs will also ensure the following:
Instructions from DoPT Order on Late Attendance
a. All employees mark their attendance using AEBAS without fail. This will ensure that there will be no discrepancy between ‘registered’ and ‘active’ employee on AEBAS.
b. In case any employee is not registered over AEBAS, immediate steps should be taken to register his/her biometric data on BAS portal; MDOs may also reconcile the data of registered employees on AEBAS with the employee data on other portals such as eHRMS portal/PFMS portal and the list of employees maintained by the Department.
c. In respect of Divyaang employees, MDOs will make appropriate arrangements for providing convenient and easily accessible machines for capturing biometrics through suitable alternative modes.
d.HODs of the MDOs shall sensitize their employees to adhere to the instructions relating to office hours, late attendance etc. They would download the consolidated report from the portal on a regular basis and identify the defaulters. Habitual late attendance and early leaving of office should be viewed seriously and be essentially discouraged. Strict action against the defaulters may be initiated under the extant GOI rules.
e. MDOs shall ensure that the biometric machines remain functional at all times.
3. Besides above, it may be noted that UIDAI has now rolled out face-based authentication applications using Android/iOS based phones. The face Authentication offers robust features like faster authentication, live location detection, geo-tagging, etc. The Nodal Officer of respective MDO shall configure personal mobile policy in attendance portal for the employees of their Organizations and get the geo-coordinates fed into the entry locations of the office. The minimum OS requirements for smart phones would be OS 9.0 or above for Android smartphones and OS 14.0 or above for iOS smartphones. NIC officers and staff of the respective MDOs will facilitate registration of their Departmental employees on such iOS/android applications.
Half a Day Casual Leave should be debited for each day of late attendance
4.It may kindly be noted that BAS is only an enabling platform and there is no change in the punctuality instructions relating to Office Hours, late attendance etc. which will continue to apply. As per extant instructions contained in DOPT OM No. 28034/8/75-Estt(A) dated 04.07.1975; DOPT OM No. 28034/10/75-Estt(A) dated 27.08.1975 and DOPT OM No. 28034/3/82-Ests(A) dated 05.03.1982, half-a-day’s Casual Leave (CL) should be debited for each day of late attendance, but late attendance upto an hour, on not more than two occasions in a-month, and for justifiable reasons may be condoned by the competent authority.
In addition to debiting Casual Leave (or Earned Leave, when no CL is available), disciplinary action may also be initiated against Government servants coming to office habitually late as it amounts to ‘misconduct’ under the CCS(Conduct) Rules, 1964. Early leaving is also to be treated in the same manner as late coming. The data relating to punctuality and attendance of an employee should also be taken into account, while considering him/her for important assignments, trainings, deputations and transfers/postings.
5.Secretaries of the Ministries/Departments etc. are, therefore, requested to kindly bring the contents of these instructions to the notice of their employees and put in place a robust monitoring mechanism to ensure complete compliance by the employees and initiate suitable action against the defaulting employees.
(Manoj Kumar Dwivedi)
Additional Secretary to the Government of India
TO,
All Secretaries of Ministries/Departments (As per standard list)
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