Central government employees in India who are enrolled in the country’s Aadhaar biometric national ID system will have soon have their attendance at work checked by the system.

Information Technology Secretary Ram Sevak Sharma told the Press Trust of India on Tuesday that the system would be fully operational before the end of September.

Sharma said employees’ attendance at work can then be tracked through a website, attendance.gov.in .

The real-time information is hoped to improve transparency, particularly as the system will be able to track employees in outlying offices as well as central departments.

According to the Indian Republic newspaper, there are 1,816 fingerprint-based biometric attendance systems operational in several offices of the central government, with over 18,200 out of 43,000 government staff registered with Aadhaar.

In the state of Jharkhand, which has been used as a pilot for the system in the past five months, officials say the technology has made a real difference.

“Earlier, people would come late or even the next day and sign in the office register,“ Jharkhand personnel chief Santosh Kumar Satapathy told the Indian Express. “The effects of the system are obvious five months into its implementation: we have groups of people going into the Project Bhavan [where the chief minister's office is located] at almost around 10 each morning."

“We have also linked their salaries to this project. If someone comes later than 10.30 am for three days or leaves before 6 pm, an SMS is sent to their mobile informing her or him that an automatic casual leave has been recorded,” said Satapathy.