Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority's website has been hacked thrice in two months. Authorities of the urban body realised about the hacking when they started receiving complaints from the citizens who had applied online for building and layout permissions and regularisation of lands under LRS. HMDA has stopped issuing manual approvals and initiated a Development Permission Management System (DPMS) to approve online.
The malware introduced by the hacker has not only crashed the DPMS but also the operating system of all commuters used in the HMDA office.
Even though the bugs have been fixed, the authorities felt that maintaining data in their own servers would be unsafe and decided to shut down all its online operations for a week.
According to highly placed sources, more than 10,000 applications including LRS, building and layout permissions were rejected in the past six months. Several online applications were rejected when they were made through DPMS.
Surprised over the rejections, several architects and builders approached HMDA and claimed that Google Maps site was denying access to them.
Similar complaints poured in from citizens too. When the clueless HMDA officials checked the software used for the website, they realised that it had been hacked thereby causing severe inconvenience since the past half- year.
HMDA commissioner Mr. T. Chiranjeevulu said the authority has now decided to seek the help of the government and uplo-ad its data into State Data Centre (SDC). He said since SDC has advanced cyber security and cannot be hacked easily, this would be the best option.
He also said that the HMDA has decided to postpone the e-auction of Uppal Bhagat plots.
The HMDA had earlier decided to issue e-auction notification on August 10 but due to data upgradation it had been postponed by 10 days. The State Government issued a notification to HMDA to sell plots in Uppal Bhagat and use the revenue generated for the ongoing infrastructure projects. Out of the total 761 acres with the HMDA at Uppal Bhagat, it had distributed 1,350 plots to 550 members and was left with about 190 acres which it has to auction.
The HMDA will e-auction the Uppal Bhagat plots in three phases. As of now, it will e-auction 67 plots (1.71 lakh square yards) in survey numbers 390,391/P, 392, 393, 394/P, 402, 403/P to 407/P, 408, 409/P to 411/P, 412 to 414,416,417,420,421 to 423, 424/P and 425 to 429. A notification pertaining to e-auction will be released between August 8 to August 10.
HMDA expects to garner Rs 1,100 crore by selling 83 2,000 square metre plots spread over 72 acres.
