TS-bPASS to be extended to Gram Panchayats

Implementation of TS-bPASS in Gram Panchayats would aid in ensuring transparency in building plan approvals, besides expediting the process as well

Hyderabad: After successfully implementing the Telangana State Building Permission Approval and Self-Certification System (TS-bPASS) in municipalities and municipal corporations, efforts are now being made to implement the system in Gram Panchayats as well.

This would aid in ensuring transparency in building plan approvals, besides expediting the process as well. Already, a pilot project has been launched in August last year in 653 Gram Panchayats in nine Urban Development Authorities limits. As part of this, about 250 applications were processed and approved under TS-bPASS in the nine Urban Development Authorities.

Now, buoyed with the success, Municipal Administration and Urban Development department has conducted a few meetings with Panchayat Raj department for implementing TS-bPASS in all Gram Panchayats across the State.

The software is ready. A formal approval was required from the State government to launch the service in all Gram Panchayats. A few amendments have to be introduced in the system for inclusion of Panchayat Raj rules, a senior MAUD official said.

Further, there were different rates for building approvals in the panchayats and there was need for uniformity. The Panchayat Raj department was working on addressing these issues and once it was done, TS-bPASS would be extended to all panchayats mostly by April this year, the senior official said.

On the reasons for extending the system to panchayats, the official said under the existing manual building permission approval practice, application processing was consuming lot of time.

These apart, there were complaints that panchayat officials were making the applicants run from pillar to post in obtaining permission. Further, in a few cases, additional fee was demanded from the applications. To address all these issues, extension of TS-bPASS in gram panchayats was being proposed, the official explained.