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The Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has informed the pharmacy institutions that those who do not fully complete the registration and onboarding process of Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS) will not be eligible for the approval process for the upcoming academic session 2026-27.
This comes as the latest in the Council's efforts to ensure mandatory implementation of the AEBAS, which is envisaged to streamline the time and attendance management of faculties and students in the institutions, in the pharmacy institutions across the country.
"It is important to note that any institution that does not fully complete the AEBAS registration and onboarding process, including acquiring devices, registering them, onboarding faculty, and regular marking of the attendance in AEBAS will not be eligible for the consideration of their SIF application for the academic session 2026–2027," said the Council in a latest circular.
As a final reminder, it directed the institutions to ensure completion of specific steps without any omission on or before December 31, 2025.
"Incomplete registration, malfunctioning devices, or failure to onboard faculty on the AEBAS portal will be regarded as non-compliant," it said.
"Therefore, all institutions are directed to strictly follow the instructions and finalise the process well ahead of the specified deadline," added the Council.
Before the end of December, 2025, the institutions need to acquire and install approved AEBAS biometric devices in alignment with the specifications outlined in the previous circulars for the device procurement. All institutions must update the record on the DIGI-PHARMed portal in the AEBAS section.
All PCI approved institutions must register their institution and complete onboarding of all their faculty on the Central AEBAS portal. They should also register and configure the devices through the nodal login, following the detailed instructions outlined in the Nodal Officer Manual available at the council's website.
All faculty members need to be verified and activated through the nodal admin dashboard, followed by synchronization of devices for real-time attendance tracking. All authorised teaching faculty are required to regularly record attendance using the registered biometric devices, within the deadline, it added.
The PCI also instructed organisations to refer to the comprehensive AEBAS Implementation FAQs and user manuals made available on its website for assistance with onboarding, device registration, and user management.
Earlier, the apex council had warned that it may withhold the decision related to those institutes which fail to comply with the registering and onboarding process of the system.
The Council has in January, this year, asked the institutions to purchase the AEBAS device as the first step for implementation of the scheme across the institutions, and later asked them to initiate the onboarding process to the system through a portal.
"In this connection, it is re-iterated that all institutions must complete the cited activity on immediate basis to avoid any withdrawal of decision letters due to non-compliance," said the Council earlier.
Once the institutions have completed the onboarding steps, specific links for each institution will be shared on their registered email ID to proceed ahead for the user registration (faculty) and set up of nodal admin in the AEBAS portal.
In March, PCI has said that the approval of institutions which has not complied with the installation of the AEBAS devices will be put on hold for the academic session 2025-26.
The ministry of health and family welfare, in November, 2023, issued a notification allowing PCI to perform Aadhaar authentication on a voluntary basis for authenticating officials, faculty and students on the portal and for capturing attendance of the faculty through biometrics using yes or no or e-KYC authentication facility.
Following this, the Council said that the AEBAS will be implemented in a phased manner, with the PCI focusing on monitoring of attendance for all faculty and non-faculty staff of all the pharmacy institutions in the first phase.
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