Biometric attendance, according to NMC, tries to screen out phantom professors

The required Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system (AEBAS) for physicians and professors is intended to weed out ghost faculty, according to a statement released by the National Medical Commission on Thursday.

“Neither physicians nor students are to be harassed by this system. It is to ensure that the medical college employs legitimate physicians and academic members. Ghost faculty should not exist, according to Dr. (Prof.) B. Srinivas, NMC Secretary.

In response to the physicians’ concerns that they would always need to record their attendance, Srinivas said that the faculty just has to do this once a day.

He said that by replacing the inspector Raj system with a digitally-driven one, the biometric attendance system will benefit the physicians and academics.

“We want systemic openness. The purpose is to verify their presence inside the medical college. Regarding the AEBAS portal, which will be accessible on the NMC website, he said, “With this system, there will be no issue of manipulating the data.”

According to Dr. Aruna Vanikar, President of the Undergraduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB), NMC, institutions would need to input their own data on the site starting on March 8. She said that this statistics would be published after universities have verified them.

Nevertheless, only colleges that are registered with AEBAS will get the unique ID.

The subject of requiring physicians and academics to attend biometric conferences has been raised by several medical groups. “It is a good measure by the NMC to introduce attendance only once because often doctors are busy in the hospital with work that requires his/her immediate attention as their priority is to save the lives of the patients,” stated Dr. Rohan Krishnan, national chairman of the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA).

The NMC’s Minimum Requirements for Annual MBBS Admissions Regulations, 2020 mandated the AEBAS. Dr. Vanikar claims that in accordance with the rules, the new portal will be connected to the NMC’s “command and control center.” Additionally, colleges must install cameras and connect to the NMC’s IT system.

Reviving the dignity of the medical profession was one of the main goals of the AEBAS mandate, she said.

According to her, medical schools were hesitant to abide with the rule. “They offered a number of justifications, like the system has many bugs or senior faculty members couldn’t register their attendance,” she stated. She did, however, add that ongoing conversations helped to fix these problems.