CHENNAI: Facing the menace of ‘ghost faculty’ in the colleges affiliated to it, Anna University has decided to go to the extent of validating the teaching staff using fingerprints.

After anti-corruption outfit Arappor Iyakkam unearthed the scam and identified 353 ghost faculties – teachers on the rolls of multiple colleges – the university conducted a detailed probe and found nearly 700 cases.

A senior professor from Anna University told DT Next that though show-cause notices were issued to all affiliated colleges seeking the correct details of faculty members, many did not reply. Now, it has decided to set up a portal where the colleges should fill all details afresh.

"Their Aadhaar number will be validated using the services of the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA),” he said.

In a circular, it directed all principals to procure fingerprint scanners. As suggested by TNeGA, an affiliation software has been integrated with the scanner for validation of fingerprints, he added.

A senior official from the IT department said the process was planned to store all details of faculty members in one database.

"The software will give a detailed report if there are any matching fingerprints between colleges to find out who all are working in multiple institutions," he said.