HYDERABAD: The Director of Public Health on Friday issued an order for the implementation of the Aadhaar-based attendance system (ABAS) in all the district government health facilities in the state.
The ABAS will be implemented for the staff working in all the PHCs, sub-centres, UPHCs, Ayushman Arogya Mandir (basti dawakhanas and palle dawakhanas) and any other health facilities under the office of the DM&HO.
A mobile facial authentication system developed by the Telangana Technology Services was earlier implemented in Khammam district as a pilot project.
Following the successful deployment of the system in the district, the Health department issued an order to implement the ABAS across the entire state.
As per the orders issued by the director of public health, all DM&HOs have been directed to identify a nodal officer for the ABAS to liaison between the state headquarters and DM&HO and update the human resource details for the DM&HO.
The order was strongly opposed by the Telangana United Medical and Health Employees Union, which said that the decision was taken without discussion with the health workers and was being imposed on them.
K Yada Nayak, secretary of the union, said,” The medical and health department is a service sector and all the district and state level officials work in this sector, starting from the fourth class staffers to doctors. We do not understand the need for ABAS when the biometric attendance is already in place.”