NEW DELHI: To efficiently manage crew, Indian Railways is planning to start biometric sign on and sign off for 100,000 locopilots and 30,000 guards which will also lead to effective train operations.
The railways business plan for 2017-18 says that Indian Railways would be migrating in a big way towards biometric attendance of crew which will be far more accurate and will greatly enhance crew availability.
“Efficient management of crew is fundamental to effective train operations as it is a vital and costly input. Crew management on Indian railways has already been computerized through crew management systems rolled out over Indian Railways- with sign-on and sign-off being recorded on the system,” says the plan.
At present 15 percent of the crew is covered under biometric sign on signoff and it is targeted to increase coverage of crew under biometric sign on sign off to over 50 percent during 2017-18.
According to railway ministry, this will ensure that locopilots attend to compulsory 10 hours of duty hours as there have been complaints of data being tempered with. Earlier, the attendance was marked on a duty register maintained at platforms.
Under the biometric attendance, crew will now have to punch at station before joining of duty and sign off at end of duty and the database will be centrally integrated so that they can mark the presence across any station in the country.
Biometric attendance has been started in all central government offices so that employees don’t skip office or leave before stipulated time.