The government has made changes to the TS-bPASS (Telangana State Building Permission Approval & Self Certification System) software to block access to persons other than those authorised, to make the system foolproof against misuse.
The changes have been made in order to avoid any scam similar to the one that happened in the Telangana State Public Service Commission. In TSPSC scam, which was exposed in March this year, 15 question papers pertaining to various competitive exams were leaked as unauthorised persons gained access to the server where the papers were stored.
The accused in the scam secured access to the question papers using the login ID and password of the Confidential Section, reportedly after stealing the same from the diary of a higher official.
“The scam was a wake-up call for us. Our login IDs and passwords are shared with multiple staff members and even outsourcing personnel who operate our accounts. We share them in good faith, but they may be misused to illegally sanction building permissions from our accounts, which will be a disaster,” shared a Town Planning official.
To arrest such possibilities, one-time passwords (OTPs) have been introduced into the login protocol of the TS-bPASS system. After the user ID and password are entered, the system will generate an OTP and send it to the authorised official’s mobile number. Access will be granted only upon entry of the OTP.
“With this change, we need to share OTPs with the staff multiple times in a day, but there will be transparency and answerability,” the official said.
Town Planning wings across the State have migrated to TS-bPASS to curtail manual intervention in issuing of building permissions. Self-registration and self-certification facilities have been introduced so that the applicant can obtain permission with a few clicks.
