The Finance Ministry will meet chief executives of leading banks today, Sep 17, to discuss credit flow to the real estate and housing sectors. According to sources D K Mittal, Secretary of Financial Services, will chair the meeting of bankers, which will take stock of credit flow to the sensitive sectors.
Anticipating a significant rate cut by the RBI, disappointed real estate community has ring alarm bells and forecast more slump due to the high interest rate regime. Pointing out that the capital and labour intensive sector plays a key role in employment generation and accelerating growth, industry body CREDAI says the government has also been losers of revenue due to neglect of the sector and risks attributed to real estate and the RBI advisories against lending to real estate have only harmed the sector and made housing costlier for consumers, apart from affecting the economy.
A White Paper on black money tabled in Parliament on Monday, May 21, has named real estate among others as most vulnerable to menace of black money. Given that land is part of the top black money generators, the white paper suggested that states could consider taxing farm income to curb black money.
When the Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee proposed home buyers to withhold 1% of the sale consideration as Tax Deducted at Source (TDS), it became a free-for-all kind of football match with developers and property consultants alleging that it could encourage black money component in real estate, while tax consultants believed otherwise and pointed out that the reach of the banking sector in rural area makes it easier to detect unsavoury deals.
It is a highly disappointing budget. The Finance Minister has miserably failed in highlighting the importance the role of Housing in economy, employment generation, apart from the very need of housing. The announcements on ECB for affordable housing is a minor respite but still meaningless.
CREDAI has stressed the importance of a devising a new scheme like tax holiday to generate stock under affordable housing category. It demands that all projects with tenements below 80 sq meter in Mumbai and Delhi, and 1000 sq meter in other cities, could be exempted from taxes.
Come budget and the real estate sector, like any other industry, comes out with its own wish list. Unfortunately, while other organised industry get a patient hearing through their industry bodies, the Finance minister seem to be hardly entertaining the sector representatives till recently.
In a bid to boost housing sector credit, the Indian government is contemplating to enhance the income-tax exemption for up to Rs 3 lakh paid as interest on housing loans in a year, from the existing limit of Rs 1.5 lakh.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday came hard on banks for overstating realisable value of real estate properties they finance by including charges such as stamp duty and other levies.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has pointed out banks’ disproportionate growth in loans to the commercial real estate sector, the retail segment and the infrastructure sector.