It is ironic that in a Union Territory gasping for revival, Omar Abdullah and his ilk find their loudest voice not in matters of development, governance, or performance – but in the shifting of a holiday. A holiday, in a land where half the offices are empty on weekends, where Mondays begin late and where the week ends with Thursday lethargy. Instead of lamenting the loss of one ceremonial day, it is high time we lamented the loss of thousands of productive manhours every single day. Those who don’t value time cannot value anything else.
This land does not need another debate over how many holidays we have got per year. We have had nearly three decades of holidays and we can assume that is almost half the lifetime. Enough. Kashmir needs a hard, scientific intervention that can track real productivity and bring discipline into a system corroded by absenteeism, ghost employees, and work avoidance. The answer lies not in speeches, not in excuses, but in technology – retina scanning across all government offices, directly monitored by the Lieutenant Governor’s office.
The Hollow Work Culture
Government offices in Jammu and Kashmir have long suffered from a malaise: work avoidance institutionalized as routine. Officers stroll in past 11 AM, clerks are absent half the week, and entire departments slow down after noon tea. Citizens stand in queues for hours to get files signed while the employees they depend on vanish in the name of prayers, family errands, or sheer idleness.
Each holiday – and there are too many already – is not just a loss of one day. It is the continuation of a culture that values leisure over labor, excuses over execution. The truth is that Kashmir has been surviving not on governance but on inertia, with a bureaucracy that resists change while politicians protect inefficiency to curry favor with voters.
If there is any seriousness about rebuilding this UT, productivity cannot remain a matter of chance. It must become a matter of science.
Why Retina Scanning?
Fingerprint scanners and manual attendance registers have already been gamed. Proxy punching, forged entries, and sheer tampering have rendered them useless. Retina scanning, however, is tamper-proof, individualized, and foolproof. Unlike fingerprints that can fade with age or be copied, the retina pattern is unique and impossible to duplicate.
By installing retina scanners in every office, every department, and every sub-office, the government can finally end the reign of ghost employees who draw salaries without ever showing up. More importantly, it can establish a culture of accountability where employees know their physical presence is being logged, recorded, and analyzed in real time.
Centralized Monitoring by LG’s Office
For this to work, the data cannot remain in dusty departmental computers where local clerks will manipulate it. Even officers will manipulate it. The attendance logs must be centralized, with dashboards under the direct control of the LG’s secretariat. A real-time screen showing how many employees are present, how many came late, and how many skipped entire days will strike fear into the complacent system. Retina scanners enable daily tabulation of reports.
This will do three things immediately:
- Expose Ghost Employees – The hundreds who are on payrolls but never seen at their desks will be caught red-handed.
- Curb Absenteeism and Truancy – Chronic latecomers will either mend their ways or face disciplinary action. Even those who sign in but spend half the day loitering outside, smoking five cigarettes in office hours (each break wasting 10–12 minutes, adding up to almost an entire lost hour per day per employee) or indulging in yaar baradari gossip, will be tracked and flagged. With retina logs, presence is not just about entering the building but about actual time at the workstation.
- Generate Actionable Data – With layered analytics, the LG can see which departments consistently lag, which districts show higher absenteeism, and which specific officers are habitual truants. When higher officers are truants; lower staff take a joy ride. And everyone loves it; since no one gets a salary cut.
The Economics of Lost Manhours
Let us be blunt: every hour lost in a government office is an hour stolen from the taxpayer. In a place like J&K, rebuilding requires speed – approvals for infrastructure, clearances for industries, support for agriculture, redressal for citizens. Yet what happens? Files crawl from one desk to another because the officer in charge is God knows where.
The cumulative cost of such absenteeism runs into thousands of crores annually. Projects are delayed, people’s confidence erodes, and ordinary citizens suffer. Holidays for whatever reasons become irrelevant in this larger theft of time. The real theft is happening every weekday, right under our noses.
How Time Theft Bleeds J&K
- An estimated 4.5 lakh govt employees in J&K.
- If each wastes 1 hour/day, that’s 4.5 lakh manhours/day → equal to 56,000 working days lost daily.
- Over a year (250 working days), that’s ~11 crore manhours lost – conservatively valued at Rs 1,000–1,500 crore in wasted salaries.
Countering the Excuses
Yes, there will be cries that retina scanning is intrusive. That it violates privacy. That it is an unnecessary expense. But what about the daily violation of the public’s right to efficient governance? What about the expense of paying salaries to employees who simply do not work?
Retina scanners cost less than what the UT loses in one day of lost productivity. Privacy arguments hold no ground when the technology is used only for attendance, not for surveillance of private lives. And as for inconvenience – well, discipline always feels inconvenient to those who thrive on indiscipline. In that context Kashmir appears worst than Bihar. It is just that we talk sweet and give a smile while we talk.
Retina Scanning vs Biometric vs App-based Attendance
| Feature | Biometric (Fingerprint) | App-based (Face/Geo-tag) | Retina Scanning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accuracy | Moderate (errors if fingers wet/dirty) | Moderate (can be spoofed via photos, GPS spoofing) | Near-Perfect (unique retinal pattern) |
| Tamper-proof | Easily gamed by proxy punching | Employees use multiple phones/fake log-ins | Impossible to duplicate retina pattern |
| Real-time Monitoring | Limited (data often local) | Limited (internet-dependent, easily delayed) | Centralized, instant dashboard |
| Proxy/Absentee Control | Weak (proxy punching common) | Weak (can check-in remotely) | Strong (physical presence mandatory) |
| Integration with LG’s Office | Rarely connected | Limited | Seamless integration for live oversight |
| Cost vs Productivity Gains | Low upfront, poor results | Low-medium, easily bypassed | Medium, but saves crores in lost manhours |
Omar’s Hollow Outcry
The real debate is not whether a holiday is celebrated on a Monday or Friday. The real debate is whether government offices work on any of the days at all. The real debate is to soul-search how many days, months, and even years we have lost so far; and can we afford to lose more – every hour, every day, every week, and every years.
In a UT that has seen decades of conflict, embezzlement, and neglect, rebuilding requires aggressive discipline. The political class must stop playing sentimental games with calendars and also people. They must instead demand accountability, while also being accountable themselves to people. Until that culture comes, we will doom this land and still be shamelessly and arrogantly smiling.
How Retina Scanning Logs Exact Hours
| Step in Workday | Without Retina Scanning | With Retina Scanning (Proposed) |
|---|---|---|
| Entry Time | Marked once (fingerprint/app) – employee free to roam | Retina scan on entry & workstation log-in |
| Midday Truancy | Not detected (smoking breaks, gossip) | Each exit/re-entry tracked via retina, with cumulative time deducted |
| Workstation Presence | No data – only building entry known | Active time at desk can be tied to retina-enabled workstation log-in |
| Exit Time | Single log – total presence unknown | Retina scan at exit – calculates exact hours inside |
| Final Calculation | Rough estimate (easy manipulation) | Exact hours/minutes logged per employee |
