Telangana Assembly passes TS-bPASS Bill

The Telangana State Building Permission Approval and Self Certification System (TS-bPASS) Bill, was passed in the Assembly today enabling a self-certification system to make citizens responsible for compliance with building and layout permission rules

‘Landmark legislation’

The State Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development KT Rama Rao introduced the Bill which was approved unanimously in the Assembly.

“Self-certification and deemed approvals make it a landmark legislation in municipal reforms,” said Minister KTR. He added that no other government in the country has introduced such a policy.

According to the new law, for constructing building within 75 sq yards land just registering with the urban local body using TS-bPASS is enough. People constructing houses in 75- 600 sq yards can seek instant permission for constructions through self-certification under TS-bPASS and start construction work.

In 2015-2016, Online Approval System — Development Permission Management System (DPMS) was introduced in the State. Under DPMS, the entire process was made online with no human intervention. However, since there was no Single Window System and supporting statutory backing for DPMS as in case of TS-iPASS system, the average time taken for issuing building/layout approvals continued to be higher than the prescribed time limit. Moreover, the applicants still had to visit different offices for obtaining NOCs and often multiple times resulting in delays.

Like TS-iPASS, under TS-bPASS, individual residential building permissions are given instantly online based on self certification.

It is proposed to establish a State Level TS-bPASS Chasing Cell to ensure that all the proposals under Single Window System are disposed within the time frame of 21 days and will also coordinate with the line departments for adherence of timelines.