Technology fails to curb graft in sanitation wing
`50 crore could be saved if irregularities are curbed
Despite introducing the Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system (AEBAS), the GHMC has not been able to corruption in marking of attendance among sanitary staff completely. It has managed to filter double entries and duplicate attendance but has failed in eliminating fake staff.
The civic body said it was saving `5 crore every month and `60 crore annually by preventing fraudulent attendance claims by using the AEBAS, but not fake workers who are appointed by sanitary field assistants (SFAs). These personnel are mostly the family members and relatives of SFAs.
Most SFAs are said to be hand-in-glove with the ground level staff and the salaries to the staff they appoint costs the corporation `50 crore. The GHMC has 948 SFAs.
Highly placed sources 21 workers, divided into groups of seven, should report to each SFA. The corporation pays `16,000 per sanitation worker including Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF). The SFAs have been provided with hand-held machines containing Aadhaar details of each worker, to mark attendance.
The change from manual marking of attendance to AEBAS has helped the corporation remove duplicate names and registering of fake attendance, where SFAs used to manipulate attendance data and draw money for salaries even when the workers are not present.
However, the corporation could not get rid of fake staff who have been enrolled into the AEBAS but are not seen working on the ground. The SFAs withdraw their salaries and share it on a 50:50 ratio. Sources said if these irregularities are curbed, the GHMC would save more than `50 crore.
A senior GHMC official, admitting to such irregularities, said, “the civic body spends `450 crore to pay salaries to outsourcing employees. According to a preliminary reports, about `110 crore was being misused annually prior to the introduction of AEBAS.”
“The corporation will now verify the old data with the current records in order to check the irregularities. We will scrutinise all recruitments after introducing AEBAS. All ineligible persons would be taken off the rolls,” the official said. He said the civic body had termed it as data purification programme.
The official said that it had come to their notice that the SFAs were registering the attendance at two different locations, one outside their jurisdiction. He said that GHMC from now on would use techonology and monitor the location of the SFAs and workers.