THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State government has backed out from implementing the Access Control System(ACS) in the Secretariat which would have helped nab those employees who escape after punching.
This comes after all service organisations strongly objected to General Administration Department’s additional chief secretary K R Jyothilal’s directive. The biometric punching system which was also supposed to be made mandatory from Saturday as per the directive of the Chief Secretary V P Joy has also not been completely implemented.
The state government had decided to implement ACS in the Secretariat to improve efficiency and security. Accordingly, work had started to set up the ACS at the various entrances of the Secretariat and also at the corridors. The plan was to implement the ACS on a trial basis for two months and after that, it will be combined with the biometric punching system. Accordingly, Jyothilal had come out with the Government Order on March 18.
The state government decided to come up with ACS after the existing punching system was found to be not foolproof. They realised that several employees have been bunking the office after punching their attendance. The Secretariat Association and the Secretariat Employees Association which owe allegiance to the Congress and CPM respectively strongly objected to the government’s move to implement the ACS.
But P Honey, president of, Secretariat Employees Association, told TNIE that service organisations were against SPARK (Service and Payroll Administrative Repository of Kerala) being connected with the ACS.
“We had approached the chief minister against this move which led him to assign the chief secretary to hold talks with the service organisations. In that meeting which was held a few weeks ago, we expressed our strong opposition against SPARK. Now, our request has been approved by the chief minister which saw the ACS not being implemented from Saturday”, said Honey.
M S Ershad, president of Secretariat Association told TNIE that the biometric punching system has been implemented only at the Secretariat. “We are against the salary cut being practised by the state government. The ACS is unscientific and we expressed our strong displeasure in implementing it which saw the Government backtracking from it”, said Ershad.
Biometric punching has been implemented at all 14 district collectorates. So far only 70 per cent of government offices have a biometric punching system. The GAD is currently awaiting the report from the respective government secretaries on the current status of the biometric punching system which has been implemented. Chief Secretary V P Joy and GAD additional chief secretary Jyothilal were unavailable for comments.