Reach office late, lose pay: mayor to NMMC employees

For once, the Navi-Mumbai Municipal Corporation's new policy comes as a breath of fresh air for those disgusted with the non-professional attitude of the organisation. Now when you visit the NMMC office, you might find all employees at NMMC office present before start of shift. The administration has taken an initiative wherein the employees' attendance has been linked to their leaves. If any employee reaches office after 10.30 am, a late-mark will be recorded against his or her name. Three late-marks will add up to loss of one day's leave. In case an employee does not have any leaves left, loss of a day's pay will be recorded.

Strict measures: In November last year, Mayor Sagar Naik waited foru00a0the latecomers outside the gates and asked them to fall into two lines. The defaulters were made to stand in line for over an hour. File Pic

Salary-linked biometric attendance has been made compulsory for all NMMC employees from January 1. Two biometric machines have been installed at the entrance of the office.

The Corporation's move has come on the heels of the Mayor's step to punish employees who didn't report to work on time. Sagar Naik, the mayor of Navi Mumbai, had made the defaulters stand in line for an hour, as reported in MiD DAY on November 30, last year. Annoyed with the lax attitude, he ordered the NMMC administration to take strict action against latecomers. Subsequently, the administration came up with the idea of linking salary and attendance of the employees.

"Earlier, our employees used to come late and leave the office early since there was no biometric attendance. They would come in and register by signing muster.

Although we had biometric machines installed, no one used them. However, now employees will have to use the biometric machine while stepping into office and while leaving which will create an electronic log of the attendance," said a senior NMMC official.

Keeping in mind the traffic issues during peak hours, the corporation has extended the reporting time by half an hour from the earlier 10 am to 10.30 am now. "We have relaxed the reporting time due to practical reasons. Employees can now register themselves till 10.30 am," J N Sinnarkar, Deputy Municipal Commissioner (administration) of NMMC, said.

As expected, some employees have expressed their disapproval over the new system. "At times, the biometric machine does not accept our thumb expression so our entry is not recorded on time. In such cases, we don't know how will our attendance be corrected. However, now, we have no option but to use biometric machine," laments some NMMC employees.u00a0