NMC to start face authentication of medical college faculty to mark attendance after spate of fake thumb prints

This follows several instances of fake thumb impressions being used to mark attendance by 'ghost faculty' to reach a mandatory attendance of 75%—also set by the NMC.

The regulator reckons absenteeism among faculty staff is affecting the quality of medical education and has proposed strict action against anyone found to be gaming the system by impersonation.

This is on top of an Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) introduced last year in med schools to keep a tab on attendance of faculties and students. That was done to ensure transparent attendance without manual interference.

Fake thumb impressions

However, it has now been reported that fake thumb impressions are being used to mark attendance by faculties, defeating the whole purpose of keeping the system transparent.

Notably, the number of medical colleges has increased 88% from 387 before 2014 to 731 now.

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“It has come to the attention of NMC that in some medical institutions the faculty members are marking bio-metric attendance on AEBAS using fake fingerprints. This is viewed seriously by the NMC. It is advised that all faculty members must mark their attendance personally in the AEBAS connected to the NMC at their medical college. Any incidence of impersonation shall attract appropriate action," an NMC official said in a communication to all medical colleges.

“NMC is now shifting to face authentication software for attendance. Our intention is to make the system transparent and clean. But doctors should think that they should not indulge in wrong practice. NMC is looking into this matter very seriously," said the official.

In addition to this, NMC has instructed all medical colleges to update the details of their faculties on their college website.

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“The list of faculties should be available separately under each department along with the details of the medical superintendent, Principal, Dean etc with their recent photo, educational qualification, latest designation and registration number issued by the respective State Medical Council," said the official adding that the names reflected in the list must be onboard in the AEBAS system of the college.

The list will be updated every month. The deadline for such an updating shall be the last day of every month.

The medical regulator has also imposed penalties ranging from ₹10 lakh to ₹50 lakh, which may even go up to ₹1 crore for failure to meet the medical education standards. In case these colleges do not improve upon these metrics, the regulator plans to reduce the number of seats in these colleges.

Queries sent to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered till press time.