Bangalore based e-commerce giant Flipkart has asked the Karnataka government to take the lead in creating a database of employed persons in the state, a step that could help in screening job applicants with a criminal past, reports Economics Times.
Flipkart is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka with over 12,000 employees helping it ship packages to people across the country, and Flipkart believes that it is challenging to run a foolproof background check of employees based on the current model of police verification.
"We have asked for a central repository that can help us," Mekin Maheswari, chief people officer at Flipkart, told ET, adding that he remains hopeful that the government will soon act on it.
Notably, in India there is an absence of central repository as far as individuals' criminal records are concerned thus there is big loophole that if there is a case registered against a person in a police station of one district that it could be missed by another police station in another district where an individual is applying for a job.
"Things get complicated if a prospective employee hails from another state. How do we make sure he has not committed any crime in his native place, although he may have a clean record in the place where he is working," said Guru Prasad Srinivasan, director of staffing at Ikya Human Capital Solutions, a Bengaluru-based staffing firm.
The problems associated with police verification as part of background check has reportedly prompted several firms, including Symphony Teleca and Nest Software, to ask staffing companies not to go for police verification at the time of hiring.
As more people shop online, consumers will want to know who is knocking at my door and Flipkart's urge to the state govt. for envisaging central database is a precautionary measure and taking lessons from Uber rape case the e-commerce giant doesn't wants to take chances as thousand of delivery men delivers packages across the country from door to door. In Uber case, investigations revealed that the taxi aggregator had not even done the basic police verification on the driver, who hailed from another state and employed in another.
As of now, however, Bengaluru city police said they are unable to concede Flipkart's request as the outcome of a verification sought depends on the way a person's name is spelt.
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