The facial recognition-based attendance system has come as a bolt from the blue for a majority of illiterate sanitation workers in the Ongole Municipal Corporation (OMC).
The biting cold is no deterrent for the over 800 sanitation workers, a majority of them taken on rolls by the Andhra Pradesh Corporation for Outsourced Services (APCOS), as they report for duty at dawn and go for house-to-house collection of garbage till 10.30 a.m. They resume their back-breaking work once again in the afternoon and slog till 5.30 p.m. each day to keep the city clean and tidy.
The attendance by photography system has turned out to be a herculean task for them as many of them do not have smartphones, complain a group of sanitation workers setting out for work in a garbage-collection vehicle introduced under the Clean Andhra Pradesh (CLAP) initiative.
‘’I bought a new android phone only yesterday to comply with the new attendance system despite facing severe financial constraints. I do not know how to use it,” says K. Sri Devi, a sanitation worker with anxiety writ large on her face, while seeking help from a Sanitation Inspector at the DRRM High School to register her attendance before setting out on work.
‘’Most of the sanitation workers are illiterate. They cannot be expected to register their attendance by facial recognition,” Andhra Pradesh Municipal Workers and Employees Federation Ongole unit working secretary Sriram Srinivas opined.
Over 400 workers taken on contract by the APCOS for civil engineering works, including laying of pipes for drinking water supply, are also in an unenvious position as they use ordinary mobile phones.
‘’With a monthly pay ranging between ₹10,200 and ₹15,000, it is unfair to ask us to buy costly mobile phones and register attendance by photography,” feel a group of workers while digging earth at the Housing Board colony to set right a leaking water pipeline.
The services of many of them taken on an ad hoc basis by the civic body when COVID-19 wreaked havoc, have not been confirmed yet. Compassionate appointments had also not been provided yet to the kin of those who died during the pandemic. They lack social security benefits too, they complain. Considering them as government employees, they have been barred from getting the benefits of the Jagananna welfare schemes including Amma Vodi, they add.
The State government has made facial recognition-based attendance system for all its employees mandatory, including municipal staff working on contract and outsourcing basis, with a view to provide transparent, efficient and time-bound services to the public. Municipal sanitary staff cannot be exempted, explains Municipal Commissioner M. Venkateswara Rao. Sanitation Inspectors will help the workers learn the new attendance system,” he adds.
