Telangana Assembly Passes TSBPASS

The Telangana State Building Permissions and Self-Certification Systems Bill 2020 (TSBPASS) was passed by the Assembly today.

The bill aims to bring in a more transparent process for getting building permissions, and assures services within specified timelines with minimal official intervention.

Introducing the bill in the Assembly, minister for municipal administration and urban development K T Rama Rao said that TSBPASS was a remarkable legislation in the history of municipal reforms.

"TSBPASS is a first-of-its-kind initiative - a fully automated, completely transparent and citizen-friendly system. Under the system permissions will be issued in a time-bound manner without any delay. It offers a single-window approval for building permissions without any human interface. The system is aimed at fast-tracking building approvals with minimal documentation, in tune with the government's goal of ensuring transparent delivery of citizen services in a speedy manner," he said.

Referring to the role of the town-planning teams, the minister said that it would be minimized with regard to building permissions. The departmemnt would henceforth be deployed to focus on district urban master planning, road widening, road development, municipal waste management, GIS-based planning for civic infrastructure and other futuristic planning works.

The minister informed the house that in the present DPMS system for building/layout permissions launched in 2014, irrespective of the plot size, files were being processed and applicants had to wait for a couple of months, and that several complaints were being made about the officials.

Explaining the salient features of the TSBPASS which would replace the DPMS, the minister said that post-verification would be done in 21 days during which the applicant would not be allowed to commence construction activity. The post-verification process will be monitored by the district-level TSBPASS committee chaired by the district Collector. Action will be taken on officials for deemed clearances after 21 days. Revocation of any certificates of registration obtained through online registration or self-certification online approvals will be done if any misrepresentations or violations are found during the post-verification.

KTR stated that scrutiny and processing would be done by cross-department teams. Only error-free DCR drawings would be accepted by the system to avoid problems. An artificial intelligence-driven support system delivered via multiple channels (social media, email, chat, Whatsapp, call centre) would be in place.

A regulatory mechanism has been set up which will be monitored by a state-level TSBPASS committee chaired by the Principal Secretary, MA&UD. Applicants will be updated via SMS at every stage.