The pilot run of the Intelligent Building Plan Management System (IBPMS) for the online application and processing of building permits in the Thiruvananthapuram city Corporation is almost complete with more than 300 applications submitted through the system in the past couple of weeks.
The civic body is making use of an online automated system for building applications after a gap of two years, as it had shifted back to manual processing in 2019, due to glitches in the system.
The pilot run is now being conducted here along with seven other local bodies across the States, with applications now being accepted only for low-risk, single occupancy buildings of up to 300 metre square. According to officials here, the system is being implemented in a phased manner, with building permits for all types of occupancies being accepted through the system by October or November.
An online system for building permit applications has been in the works for many years, but it had failed to take off during previous launches. After the previous launch in 2019, as many as 1,000 building permit applications remained pending in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation as many drawings were rejected even for small errors. The drawings were accepted by the automated system, only if all these errors were rectified.
Back then, the Corporation had, before and after the introduction of the software, conducted several training sessions for building designers and officials here. But, even then, the implementation was far from smooth. The local body even had to open help desks for those who are facing issues with building permit applications in the IBPMS software, following an uproar on the pending applications.
In the past, there has been some level of resistance to the implementation from licensed designers and contractors, as it became harder to manipulate the system to get files passed with a drawing of their choice. It remains to be seen whether the entire process of building permit application will shift to an automated online system finally, after many false starts.
