BuildNow Telangana: How to Get Building Permissions Online

BuildNow is the Telangana government's unified online building and layout approval system, replacing TG-bPASS. Applications under GHMC, HMDA, and DTCP limits, along with municipalities and municipal corporations across the state, are processed through it.

In practice, this means one portal for everything. Whether you are building a single house or a multi-tower project, drawings, fees, and status tracking all sit in one place, rather than moving between department websites as in the older system.

The scrutiny engine is the substantive change. Under TG-bPASS, scrutiny could take anywhere from two to thirty days. BuildNow runs an automated check of drawings against zoning and building rules, targeting minutes rather than days for standard applications.

If you already hold a sanctioned plan issued under TG-bPASS, it remains valid. The cutover applies to fresh applications.

Three routes, decided by plot size and height.

Registration only. Plots up to 75 square yards, roughly 63 square metres, with construction limited to ground floor or ground plus one, residential. No building permission and no occupancy certificate required. You still register on the portal, with a token fee of ₹1. The building must comply with setback, height and other rules regardless.

Instant approval. Residential plots above 75 square yards and up to 500 square metres, roughly 600 square yards, with height up to 10 metres. Approval is granted through online self-certification, with no site visit or departmental NOC at the permission stage. This covers most individual houses, villas and independent floors.

Single window. Plots above 500 square metres, buildings above 10 metres, and all non-residential construction. Multiple NOCs are obtained through a Common Application Form with full technical scrutiny.

One provision worth knowing: no mortgage is required for plots up to 200 square metres with height up to 7 metres.

Sale deed and link documents establishing ownership

Encumbrance certificate for the property

Latest property tax receipt

Layout LP number, where applicable

Architectural and structural drawings signed by a Licensed Technical Person

Self-certification declarations confirming compliance with building rules

Pull the EC fresh rather than reusing an older copy. The Telangana encumbrance certificate guide covers what it does and does not show, including the 1983 digital record limit.

Open buildnow.telangana.gov.in and create or log in to your citizen account

Select your application type, whether registration only, instant approval, or single window, based on plot size and height

Enter property details including survey number, plot area, and jurisdiction

Upload architectural and structural drawings along with ownership and property tax documents

Let the scrutiny engine validate the drawings against applicable rules

Pay the fees once the system raises a fee intimation

Download your sanctioned plan and permission order once payment and verification are clear

The sanctioned plan is issued as a stamped drawing plus a proceedings letter, both downloadable from the portal. The Telangana building plan approval guide walks through the fee breakdown in more detail.

Instant Approval for Small Plots

Residential plots up to 500 square metres with height up to 10 metres qualify for instant permission through self-certification. Submit the application and fees online, and approval is granted immediately, with officials typically conducting a follow-up inspection within 15 days to verify what was declared.

The responsibility sits with you. Self-certification means you are attesting to compliance upfront, and post-verification can act on what it finds.

Fee components typically include scrutiny fees, development charges (in the HMDA area these follow G.O.Ms No. 223 of 2016, and other authorities have their own orders), a 1 percent labour cess on estimated construction cost, and BuildNow user charges, generally payable within 15 days of intimation.

Budget for the cess and development charges separately from the scrutiny fee, since they are calculated on estimated construction cost rather than charged flat.

Selecting the wrong category for your plot size or height

Submitting drawings that do not match Telangana Building Rules, which the scrutiny engine checks automatically

Missing or outdated encumbrance certificate or property tax receipt

Not paying the intimated fee within the stipulated window, which stalls processing

Assuming the residential single-window timeline applies to a commercial or high-rise application

Building beyond the sanctioned plan

That last one carries the heaviest consequence. For side and rear setbacks, the District Collector's Special Task Force assesses deviations as under or over 10 percent, and the action it can take includes revoking the permission, a penalty of 25 percent of the land value, or demolition without notice. Post-verification is carried out by the District Level bPASS Committee.

BuildNow scrutinises your drawing against building rules. It does not tell you whether the land underneath is buildable in the first place.

That question sits earlier. Telangana carries an unusually long list of land categories that appear in ordinary revenue records but cannot be built on or sold, including Assigned, Inam, Wakf, Endowment, and Forest classifications, alongside zoning restrictions and buffer requirements. A permission application on a parcel with one of those problems will surface it late, after fees are paid and drawings are done.

1acre.in maintains Telangana guides covering that verification track, and the survey number map layer lets you locate a parcel boundary from the map when you are working from a location rather than a number.

The honest limits. That map layer draws on revenue records, so it maps agricultural and peri-urban land better than parcels well inside municipal limits, and it is a reference view rather than an approval. The sanctioned plan from BuildNow and the land status from the revenue portals are what actually govern what you can build.

BuildNow has genuinely compressed what used to be a slow, multi-office process. The automated scrutiny is fast, small plots barely need a process at all, and deemed approval gives you a route when the authority goes quiet.

Work out your category before anything else, since it decides your documents, your fees and your timeline. Confirm the land is clean and correctly zoned before paying for drawings. Have the EC, tax receipt and ownership documents current when you start. Use a Licensed Technical Person for the drawings. Pay the intimation within the window. And once sanctioned, build to the plan, because the penalty for deviating is measured against land value rather than construction cost.