New Delhi, Sep 9 - It's 8.45 a.m. and the clock is ticking fast. Hundreds of employees of the Ministry of Home Affairs at North Block are sweating and rushing to register their fingerprint attendance on biometric scanners installed in all its offices.

They are battling to meet the deadline - 9 a.m. sharp - to report at office or else they will be marked late and will have to compensate and leave late in the evening.

'Hardly anybody comes late now!' said a smiling security officer outside the ministry office as he hurriedly checked the identities of employees.

The culture of punctuality has developed fast in the P. Chidambaram-led home ministry after the scanners were installed Sep 1 and employees asked to come on time and leave after 5.30 in the evening.

Bureaucrats in India are known for not sticking to time. But the change has begun and Home Minister Chidambaram has taken the lead. The attendance system is his brainchild.

The minister has been able to initiate change in the decades-old work culture of government employees - sarcastically referred to as 'babus' who don't care too much about being dutiful.

On Sep 1, the day the scanners were installed, Chidambaram arrived at his office at 9 in the morning and marked his attendance by placing his index finger on one of the biometric machines.

Following their boss, thousands of the ministry's employees are now doing the same - being punctual. Or else a 10-minute delay thrice a month will be counted as one day's casual leave.

'It was hard to change the old habit, but one has to do it. There was a traffic jam. Thank god I still made it on time,' said an employee requesting he should not be named.

A senior official told IANS: 'Earlier employees in the ministry used to come at their own sweet time and leave whenever they liked.