New Delhi, March 9 (IANS): Pursuant to an advisory issued by the Delhi Government in the wake of rapidly-spreading coronavirus, the Principal Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has stopped use of biometric machines to mark attendance of its employees.

"To prevent coronavirus, marking of attendance on biometric machines and use of the same is being stopped with immediate effect till March 31, 2020," NGT's Registrar General, Ashu Garg, stated.

Attendance during this period is to be marked manually with arrival and departure time under the supervision of the concerned supervision officer, Garg added.

The number of coronavirus cases in India have risen to 43 as four more cases were reported from Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Kerala.

The Delhi government had last week advised heads of departments (HoDs), autonomous bodies and Municipal Corporations to suspend the biometric attendance system as a preventive measure to check the spread of the coronavirus.

All the Central government employees have also been exempted from marking attendance through Aadhaar-based biometric system.