JNTU Hyderabad Launches Biometric Attendance in its Affiliated Engineering Colleges

Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad launched a biometric attendance system for faculty and students on January 9, 2017, at all its affiliated engineering colleges. The varsity launched the first phase of the biometric system as per the directions that were given by Deputy Education Minister of Telangana, Kadiyam Srihari. The main motive for launching biometric attendance is to ensure transparency in the system. On the other hand, the students who fail to secure a minimum of 70% attendance in an academic year will not be eligible to avail scholarship.

Also read: -MCI says Aadhar Card Mandatory to Track Attendance of Faculty in Medical Colleges

For this purpose, JNTU sent directions to all the affiliated engineering colleges across the state to adopt the biometric system of attendance. Earlier, JNTU planned to launch the system in the third week of December 2016. The varsity faced a tough time to find contracts and vendors for initiating the system. However, in the first phase, the varsity launched biometric attendance in 158 colleges. Depending upon the results of the first phase, JNTU-H will launch more secure and advanced methods in the second phase.

Also read: - MCI Introduces Biometric Attendance System for College Faculty

One of the officials of JNTU-H revealed that some of the colleges represent false statistics and data every year. They show more number of faculty members than the college actually has, and initially indicated that the college students have a good attendance. Therefore, to make things transparent, the government has come up with biometric attendance. Moreover, students need to maintain 70 percent of attendance to avail scholarships.

However, most of the students and faculty are not happy with the new system. One of the principals of an engineering college pointed that students come to college regularly if teachers come to college. There are both pros and cons in the current system.