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The man who built the online attendance system for India’s government officials

72 points by aptwebapps 12y ago

sauronlord 12y ago
The real interesting part of this story was barely discussed: That one person could build an entire system like this for the country. 10 years ago it would have taken a 100 people
cinbun8 12y ago
"In all, it costs around Rs3 crore ($490,000). “It’s still in the trial stage,” said Sharma, “And we are still getting feedback on it.” While the website looks sleek, I'm not sure the what the expected ROI is on the 3 crores spend. What are we to expect of this system ? That government officials can be held accountable for not maintaining attendance ? It reminds me of the very first job I held. Work would be allotted to me and I'd finish it in 5-6 hours and head home. I'd work an hour or two on researching how to improve our existing systems and implement them the next day. At the end of the week a manager pulled out a report that said I'd clocked low hours and I was punished for it. Those who stayed back to have tea and a late supper clocked more hours and were considered `hard working`. Attendance != productivity or progress
keithpeter 12y ago
Nice idea for taking the class attendance register at College/school. Just mild concern about the biometric data being stored centrally.
- shill 12y ago
  They probably chose the biometric data option over ID cards to prevent buddy punching.
  - keithpeter 12y ago
    If they packaged this up and provided an optional ID card scanner front end could be useful.
avinassh 12y ago
How come there are no concerns about privacy? Most of the people's email ID and personal phone numbers are visible in that site
- enry_straker 12y ago
  They are public officials and those are public contact details.
  - srean 12y ago
    I would be a lot happier if this applied equally to the elected officials as much as the bureaucracy. What makes it difficult is what is the "office" for elected officials. One can argue that they are making more of a difference on the "field" rather than the parliament, but usually the reality is that they are mostly twiddling thumbs somewhere else entirely and that would be the better case scenario, the more common case would be that they are too busy counting the money.
  - njx 12y ago
    If you look at the data.gov site, you will find datasets from Chicago police department that contains official names and how much salary they withdraw, everything public.
    - saryant 12y ago
      Similarly, the salaries of every employee of the state of Texas, by name: http://salaries.texastribune.org/ http://salaries.texastribune.org/ Teachers, police, politicians, everyone.
dang 12y ago
Url changed from http://scroll.in/article/683083/Meet-the-man-who-built-the-awesome-online-attendance-system-for-India%E2%80%99s-government-officials http://scroll.in/article/683083/Meet-the-man-who-built-the-a..., which points to this.
whizzkid 12y ago
When I saw the screenshots of this article, it reminded me how much stress my indian colleagues were dealing with, a year ago. We have worked some time together on a project with Indian people (still friends with them, awesome people) and the way they explained their working environment was not really appealing at all unfortunately. They were indirectly forced to worked more than eight hours a day (around 9 to 10), and was required to report everyday to their managers about the progress done during the day in a stylesheet. Their managers were trying cut off financially as much as they can to save some more money in the department so that managers can get extra money at the end of year depending on the savings. This caused employees more stress, more work, less comfort and less time with family. Since there are already a lot of people waiting to get job out there, they did not have much choice but accept the companies' rules.. I am hoping for a more trust oriented employer-employee relationships for my indian fellows..
- giis 12y ago
  You are spot on. As an Indian I can confirm this behavior. Managers consider people as "resource" and treat them as "slave" (not an exaggeration). I hear lot of my friends use this exact word (slave) and I by myself felt the same way. They ask people to work for 10-12 hrs. (During 2007/2008 recession, companies like infosys/tcs increased working hours -8 hrs to 9 hrs -, even today, its the same hours). Unless you are close to the manager (do some shoe-licking), working on Indian IT services is a hell,if you have conscience.
jpatel3 12y ago
Seeing the implementation would be a interesting, but certainly it can be powerful and bring transparency.
sjtrny 12y ago
I see this system as a force that compels people to work longer hours than is neccesary. Public access to this data will make people name and shame particular individuals in the bureaucracy who might consistently clock in a little bit late, even though the reason behind the lateness might be legitimate (caring for others in family or long term illness). This is not transparency it just makes bureaucracy worse.
- 31reasons 12y ago
  Many indian government employees don't even work 2 hours a day. This system will definitely help in changing the culture before it becomes an issue.
nawitus 12y ago
If you measure attendance, you will get attendance. However, there's no value in attendance.
- curiousDog 12y ago
  Well they are government jobs (not necessarily programming/creative but say registrars) where attendance does make a difference
  - jacalata 12y ago
    I can't say for sure about the Indian government, but the US government employs a lot of programmers. So not necessarily not programmers, either.
- akbar501 12y ago
  The question is what is the current attendance? If attendance is a problem, then it makes perfect sense to measure it.
final 12y ago
Hmmm, can be quite useful to thieves. Is this guy at work now? Yeah, than it's time to steal some stuff from his home.
rdraju 12y ago
While I agree that attendance is a bad measure, knowing the Indian bureaucracy I welcome anything that makes it more accountable. Most of the organizations are filled with employees who have no interest / motivation in performing their duties, are unaccountable to their bosses or public and have no fear of loosing their job's for ANY reason.
91pavan 12y ago
Can someone point to the visualization libraries being used in the attendance website?
- jishnum 12y ago
  Seems to me like this http://www.almsaeedstudio.com/preview http://www.almsaeedstudio.com/preview - a free template.
- aptwebapps 12y ago
  Looks like Highcharts.
- uberneo 12y ago
  yeah pure highcharts .. and this is the theme "http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB08N77TC" http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB08N77TC" which they have used .. costs around $15
Nano2rad 12y ago
Biometric based attendance system is violation of privacy.
uberneo 12y ago
checkout the "Attendance In-Time Statistics" pie chart on main Dashboard .. 33% are coming to office after 11 AM ,almost at lunch time.. great isn't :)

72 points by aptwebapps 12y ago

The real interesting part of this story was barely discussed: That one person could build an entire system like this for the country. 10 years ago it would have taken a 100 people

cinbun8 12y ago

"In all, it costs around Rs3 crore ($490,000). “It’s still in the trial stage,” said Sharma, “And we are still getting feedback on it.” While the website looks sleek, I'm not sure the what the expected ROI is on the 3 crores spend. What are we to expect of this system ? That government officials can be held accountable for not maintaining attendance ? It reminds me of the very first job I held. Work would be allotted to me and I'd finish it in 5-6 hours and head home. I'd work an hour or two on researching how to improve our existing systems and implement them the next day. At the end of the week a manager pulled out a report that said I'd clocked low hours and I was punished for it. Those who stayed back to have tea and a late supper clocked more hours and were considered `hard working`. Attendance != productivity or progress

keithpeter 12y ago

Nice idea for taking the class attendance register at College/school. Just mild concern about the biometric data being stored centrally.

shill 12y ago
They probably chose the biometric data option over ID cards to prevent buddy punching.
- keithpeter 12y ago
  If they packaged this up and provided an optional ID card scanner front end could be useful.

avinassh 12y ago

How come there are no concerns about privacy? Most of the people's email ID and personal phone numbers are visible in that site

enry_straker 12y ago
They are public officials and those are public contact details.
- srean 12y ago
  I would be a lot happier if this applied equally to the elected officials as much as the bureaucracy. What makes it difficult is what is the "office" for elected officials. One can argue that they are making more of a difference on the "field" rather than the parliament, but usually the reality is that they are mostly twiddling thumbs somewhere else entirely and that would be the better case scenario, the more common case would be that they are too busy counting the money.
- njx 12y ago
  If you look at the data.gov site, you will find datasets from Chicago police department that contains official names and how much salary they withdraw, everything public.
  - saryant 12y ago
    Similarly, the salaries of every employee of the state of Texas, by name: http://salaries.texastribune.org/ http://salaries.texastribune.org/ Teachers, police, politicians, everyone.

dang 12y ago

Url changed from http://scroll.in/article/683083/Meet-the-man-who-built-the-awesome-online-attendance-system-for-India%E2%80%99s-government-officials http://scroll.in/article/683083/Meet-the-man-who-built-the-a..., which points to this.

whizzkid 12y ago

When I saw the screenshots of this article, it reminded me how much stress my indian colleagues were dealing with, a year ago. We have worked some time together on a project with Indian people (still friends with them, awesome people) and the way they explained their working environment was not really appealing at all unfortunately. They were indirectly forced to worked more than eight hours a day (around 9 to 10), and was required to report everyday to their managers about the progress done during the day in a stylesheet. Their managers were trying cut off financially as much as they can to save some more money in the department so that managers can get extra money at the end of year depending on the savings. This caused employees more stress, more work, less comfort and less time with family. Since there are already a lot of people waiting to get job out there, they did not have much choice but accept the companies' rules.. I am hoping for a more trust oriented employer-employee relationships for my indian fellows..

giis 12y ago
You are spot on. As an Indian I can confirm this behavior. Managers consider people as "resource" and treat them as "slave" (not an exaggeration). I hear lot of my friends use this exact word (slave) and I by myself felt the same way. They ask people to work for 10-12 hrs. (During 2007/2008 recession, companies like infosys/tcs increased working hours -8 hrs to 9 hrs -, even today, its the same hours). Unless you are close to the manager (do some shoe-licking), working on Indian IT services is a hell,if you have conscience.

jpatel3 12y ago

Seeing the implementation would be a interesting, but certainly it can be powerful and bring transparency.

sjtrny 12y ago

I see this system as a force that compels people to work longer hours than is neccesary. Public access to this data will make people name and shame particular individuals in the bureaucracy who might consistently clock in a little bit late, even though the reason behind the lateness might be legitimate (caring for others in family or long term illness). This is not transparency it just makes bureaucracy worse.

31reasons 12y ago
Many indian government employees don't even work 2 hours a day. This system will definitely help in changing the culture before it becomes an issue.

nawitus 12y ago

If you measure attendance, you will get attendance. However, there's no value in attendance.

curiousDog 12y ago
Well they are government jobs (not necessarily programming/creative but say registrars) where attendance does make a difference
- jacalata 12y ago
  I can't say for sure about the Indian government, but the US government employs a lot of programmers. So not necessarily not programmers, either.
akbar501 12y ago
The question is what is the current attendance? If attendance is a problem, then it makes perfect sense to measure it.

final 12y ago

Hmmm, can be quite useful to thieves. Is this guy at work now? Yeah, than it's time to steal some stuff from his home.

rdraju 12y ago

While I agree that attendance is a bad measure, knowing the Indian bureaucracy I welcome anything that makes it more accountable. Most of the organizations are filled with employees who have no interest / motivation in performing their duties, are unaccountable to their bosses or public and have no fear of loosing their job's for ANY reason.

91pavan 12y ago

Can someone point to the visualization libraries being used in the attendance website?

jishnum 12y ago
Seems to me like this http://www.almsaeedstudio.com/preview http://www.almsaeedstudio.com/preview - a free template.
aptwebapps 12y ago
Looks like Highcharts.
uberneo 12y ago
yeah pure highcharts .. and this is the theme "http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB08N77TC" http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB08N77TC" which they have used .. costs around $15

Nano2rad 12y ago

Biometric based attendance system is violation of privacy.

uberneo 12y ago

checkout the "Attendance In-Time Statistics" pie chart on main Dashboard .. 33% are coming to office after 11 AM ,almost at lunch time.. great isn't :)