Maharashtra Chambers of Housing Industry (MCHI), most prominent body of the real estate developers today described the Union Budget presented by the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as “Budget with few positive steps focused on the common man who is interested in buying a house in rural and urban areas”.
The MCHI President Mr Sunil Mantri, complemented the Finance Minister for his positive announcements such as increase in the priority sector home lending up to Rs 25 lakh from the existing Rs 20 lakh, which will help the common man get advantage of the teaser home loan rates. According to him, among other measures, one per cent interest subvention on housing loans up to Rs 15 lakh (for homes costing an maximum of Rs 25 lakh) is also a welcome move while the allocation of Rs 3000 crore towards rural housing fund is expected to boost the overall housing in rural India. The mortgage risk guarantee fund for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) are the other steps taken which are expected to bring cheers to the housing sector and the liberalization
The MCHI President has expressed satisfaction on the government’s intention to bring in Central Electronic Registry, and FDI liberalization that are likely to help the real state sector to grow faster.
According to Mr Sunil Mantri, the members of the MCHI were expecting the restoration of 80 IB of income tax in respect of residential units measuring less than 1,500 sq ft area, easy accessibility of funds for project execution, permission of External Borrowing (ECB) for funding of real estate projects, granting a infrastructure status to all the redevelopment project and withdrawal of service tax on real estate. However, the Finance Minister did not address these issues, which might affect the growth of the real estate sector.
