Indian Railway to Introduce Biometric Attendance for Locopilots and Guards in Trains
Indian
Railway to start biometric sign on and sign off for thousands of locopilots and
guards
India: Indian Railway recently announced to launch
biometric attendance system for its employees. The technological shift is
expected to cover 100 thousand of locopilots and over 25,000 guards, to efficiently
manage the crew.
The railways business plan for 2017-18 suggested
that Indian railways will be migrating towards biometric attendance to bring in
more accuracy and transparency of crew availability. According to government estimates,
15 percent of the crew is covered under biometric sign on and sign off, which
would be further extended to cover nearly 50 percent of the railway crew by
2018.
The biometric facility will enable Ministry
of Railways to ensure that locopilots attend mandatory 10 hours of duty, as
there were complaints regarding tampering of attendance records earlier. Under
the new biometric attendance, the crew will punch in before joining the duty
and sign off at the end of duty. The biometric attendance system will have a
central database so that employee can mark the attendance across any station in
the country.
TechSci Research depicts that adaptation
of biometric in Indian railways will pave way for biometric market in future as
it will provide accuracy and availability of the locopilots and guards to avoid
railway mishap. The implementation of biometric in all central government
offices and other ministries, to keep track of employees working hours, will
bring in more transparency and efficiency in the system.
According to recent report published by TechSci Research “India
Biometrics Market By Type By End Use Sector,
Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2011-2021”, the country’s biometrics market is projected to grow at a CAGR
over 31% during 2016 - 2021.
In 2015, the country’s southern region held the largest share in India
biometric market, owing to rising industrialization and presence of a large
number of leading private sector companies in the region. Government,
banking & finance, energy & power, and consumer electronics are the key
end user segments where deployment of biometric systems is witnessing an
increase, and this trend is expected to continue over the next five years.