Flaws in software cost city corporation dearly

Thiruvananthapuram: The local fund audit report has come down heavily on the IBPMS (intelligent building plan management system) for its flaws in maintaining accurate data on permit fees and lack of a system to levy and record collection of service cess. Corporation suffered a loss of around Rs 80 lakh as result.As per relevant government order, 10% of permit fee needs to be collected as service cess. However, IBPMS software has no provision to do this. Between July 25, 2021 and November 14, 2023, the corporation collected Rs 8.5 crore as permit fee. Ideally this would have enabled the corporation to collect a service cess of Rs 80 lakh. The report notes that although the permit fee was increased and there was a rise in service cess, the loss from not collecting the service cess is piling up on a daily basis.The audit report says that the software fails to furnish any data on permits being issued by the civic body in 2022-23. No response was furnished to the repeated audit queries, the report notes. The local fund audit report had flagged this shortcoming in the software in its audit report for 2021-22.According to earlier report, information regarding permit applications processed and granted via IBPMS for 2021-22 was not available in main office and zonal offices. The dimensions of buildings for which permit was given through IBPMS could not be ascertained either. There was no clarity on the account to which this amount was credited or the amount received via this account. The audit report had added that neither the town planning wing nor the accounts wing had any clue about the fund inflow via IBPMS.With no avenues for conducting audit of files processed through IBPMS, the local fund audit department had to resort to auditing permits which were processed manually.The city corporation switched to automated online processing of building permits for low risk building categories via IBPMS in 2021. The urban affairs department had introduced IBPMS in seven other civic bodies in the state.The software which was first introduced in 2018 had to be withdrawn owing to technical glitches. LSG had in 2018 tied up with Kerala state industrial development corporation (KSIDC) to launch an automated intelligent online software for issuance of building permits. The system was designed to work in such a way that the usual practice of officials listing down queries on each application would be done away with as the application would get uploaded only if it is as per the norms.