NEW DELHI: To leverage the latest technology and to make the attendance process user-friendly, the National Medical Commission (NMC) on Wednesday announced that they have decided to fully shift to face-based Aadhaar authentication for marking attendance.
The new rule will apply to all medical colleges and institutions from May 1.
At present, all medical colleges and institutions in the country mark attendance through the Aadhar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS).
In a public notice, NMC Secretary, Dr Raghav Langer, said, “The FACE based Aadhaar authentication with UIDAI RD (Registered Device Service) is currently in use in various government offices through NIC (National Informatics Centre).”
He directed the medical colleges and institutions to share the GPS location of different points in the college with NMC so that attendance can be marked within a 100-meter radius of a given GPS location in the college.
"College will have to share GPS locations of points where it want the convenience of attendance marking via a mobile App," said the notice marked to all the states and other health departments.
The FACE Authentication App will be activated from April 24, and any college facing difficulties has to bring it to the notice of the technical team before April 30.
“From 1st May, 2025, marking of attendance on NMC AEBAS vide Finger Authentication device will be discontinued and only the Face biometric Authentication (vide Mobile based App and/or wall mount device) on NMC AEBAS will be permitted,” the notice said.
The NMC had last year introduced the AEBAS portal to enhance transparency and reduce manual interference. The idea was to eliminate the need for physical inspections and instead rely on data accuracy and surprise inspections.
Officials then had said that the attendance system was not to harass doctors or students, but to make sure genuine doctors and faculty members are working in the medical college. “There should not be any ghost factory,” then NMC Secretary, Dr. B. Srinivas, told TNIE.
The Wednesday notice also said that colleges will have to share the information to NMC through email id support.aebas@nmc.org.in by April 20, with the signature and stamp of the Dean/Principal of the College/Institute.
Further, the email should have contact details of the concerned nodal officer of the college.
All faculty members have to install the FACE-based Aadhaar Authentication App - mobile phone-based - to their mobile phones.
The Secretary further said that the Dean/Principals of all Medical Colleges/Institutions should take necessary action for the installation of the application on the mobile phones of all faculty members of their institution.
The App is available on the Android Play Store and Apple App Store.
The user manual for the installation of the App was also attached to the notice.