Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala government employees who carry out duties of special nature would be exempted from biometric punching, ordered the General Administration department. The order which is applicable to all establishments under the government will be in force from August 1.

As per the order the punching done by those who work on a shift basis or outside of the normal office hours would be delinked from the payroll software in such a way that their salaries won't be cut.

The order has laid down conditions for the exemption. Such employees must continue to do the punching and their working hours should be recorded by their superiors and entered on the payroll software, SPARK.

(SPARK is the integrated payroll and accounts information system that calculates salary of every government employee in the state.)

Those who have to take up shift duty at short notice have to upload the order in this regard on SPARK and submit the On-Duty (OD) certification.

The biometric punching system was launched earlier this year to curb late arrivals and early leaving of employees. It has been implemented in all semigovernment, local self-government bodies and institutions receiving government grant.

Other guidelines

• Those who could not update their fingerprints on Aadhaar despite multiple attempts have been exempted from punching.

• Employees who have to work in offices other than their original workplace and those on deputation need only to sign the attendance register if there is no punching system in those offices.

• If an employee forgets to do the punching attendance can be marked only two times in a year. If the staff could not do the punching because of technical hitches or electricity outages, an application should be submitted to the Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO) in order to mark it as attendance.

• If an employee does not report for work beyond the grace time allowed on SPARK and even if it is regularised as leave, the grace period will not be restored.

• Those who are required to work outside their offices should not do the punching.

• Those who work more than 10 hours a month on overtime will be granted a day of leave in lieu of it. The period of work beyond 7 hours a day will be considered as overtime duty.