Centre suspends biometric attendance for govt officials, employees amid surge in COVID cases

Amid the surge in COVID-19 cases across the country, the biometric attendance for government officials and employees have been suspended with immediate effect.

According to sources, Union minister Jitendra Singh said this will continue until further orders.

On Monday, India reported 33,750 new cases and 123 deaths. The number of people infected with the new variant of the virus rose to 1,700, with Maharashtra reporting the most number of cases—510. As many as 175 fresh Omicron cases were reported on Monday.

The states that reported the most number of cases were Maharashtra (11,877), West Bengal (6,153), Delhi (3,194), Kerala (2,802) and Tamil Nadu (1,594).

With the steep spike in cases, the daily positivity in the country rose to 3.84 per cent and the weekly positivity rate to 1.68 per cent.