Suspecting the use of black money to finance deals in the country’s booming real estate sector, the Income Tax Department is keeping close tabs on the sources of funding for developers’ lucrative projects.
With the emergence of Gujarat real estate sector on the realty map of India, the state’s real estate developers have also got recognition at the national level. Jaxay Shah, director of Savvy Infrastructure, has been elected as the new vice-president of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI).
Shahid Balwa, a key figure in the telecom scandal that has shaken the government, has resigned as the head of his flagship real estate company, DB Realty. Balwa is vice-chairman of Gulf group Etisalat’s joint venture in the country and at 36 was the youngest billionaire on last year’s Forbes India rich list.
Land mafia has surfaced in the twin cities of Hubli and Dharwad of Karnataka in a big way. They are converting agricultural lands into residential plots without the CLU (Change of Land Use) and other required approvals from the concerned authorities and are selling to gullible people.
The vision of owning a house is slowly getting clearer for buyers as residential real estate prices are beginning to see the promised correction on the back of hardening interest rates and poor transaction volumes.
Uttarakhand government has set up a judicial commission on the High Court orders to investigate the role of some officials in the Rishikesh-based housing project.
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has set a record by recovering property tax of Rs400 crore till March 3. More tax is likely to be collected in the remaining days of the current financial year. The civic body had collected Rs108.99 crore in property tax in fiscal 2000-01.
With only $400-500 million of foreign funds flowed into the Indian real estate sector in 2009-10, the outlook ahead seems to be far from being rosy.
The CBI has questioned chairman of Anant Raj Group, a Delhi-based real estate company, Amit Sarin, and Idea Cellular CEO Sanjeev Aga in connection with its probe into the 2G spectrum allotment scam.
At least four firms, Ansal Properties and Infrastructure Ltd (Ansal API), Emaar MGF Land Ltd, Kumar Urban Development Ltd and Paranjape Schemes Constructions Ltd, have received fresh sanctions from banks, although overall lending to the sector remains subdued.