Face-reading system inaugurated in TMA Tank

TANK: In a corrective action, the district administration has introduced a face-reading attendance system at government offices to check absenteeism and identify ghost employees by first implementing it in the district’s civic agency, ie tehsil municipal administration.

The biometric/ face-reading system is meant to monitor performance of its 380 employees to improve service delivery by ensuring its staff attendance on a daily basis.

According to the district administration, the decision to this effect was taken following an inspection team detected a number of ghost employees at various departments in the district and unauthorised absence from government offices including schools, hospitals and several other offices.

“The number of ghost employees come to around several hundred in the district’s offices, but it is just tip of the iceberg, as more shirkers will come to surface during course of further inspections, so we have to tighten the screws on them by installation of biometric/face-reading attendance devices at all departments,” Deputy Commissioner Hameedullah Khattak told media.

He said that TMA received tens of millions of rupees in the shape of grants and local fund generation, but its performance vis-a-vis public service delivery remained pathetic, which is why the administration introduced biometric attendance there.