School students in Chennai will soon be marked for attendance with facial recognition. For, the TN e-governance agency is gearing up to launch facial recognition attendance system shortly.

CEO of the agency, Santosh K Misra, who is warming up to his new role, said the roll-out will happen within two months. “We are working with the State Education Department on this initiative,” he said, adding the basic requirement for implementing it will need schools to be equipped with CCTVs. The plan is to launch it by the New Year. “The first version will be ready by January, after which the tweaks will be done to make it a robust and effective implementation. IIT-Madras will provide the product at zero cost to the department,” Misra said. 

Less than 1.5 months into his role, the bureaucrat spells out three of the agency’s key responsibilities – government to citizen services; help to provide technology solutions for government departments such as ERP, supply chain and automation requirements; explore emerging technologies for relevant use cases. Misra said TN is fourth on the e-transactions list behind AP, Telangana and Gujarat. 

About 6,000 Common Services Centres (physical) will be added to the existing network of 10,000 centres within a fortnight. With services to certify income, community, nativity already part of the offering, the transfer of patta will also be made available soon, he said.