The real estate is one of the leading contributors to the employment sector and to the GDP of the country. Various measures taken by the government and the Reserve Bank of India so far have managed to bail out the realty sector through the challenging 2020. But the industry has not yet completely recovered and expects further support from the government in the Union Budget 2021 to revive the sector.
The sector is expecting the government to accord industry status to the Real Estate sector as a whole. This is a long-pending demand and this would infuse the much-needed liquidity by including the realty sector in the priority lending list of banks and other financial lending institutions.
Faster implementation of alternative investment funds (AIF) can also rescue the stressed residential projects. Completion of stressed projects will improve homebuyer sentiment and boost demand.
Another demand of the sector is to reintroduce the Input Tax Credit (ITC) to allow developers to claim this benefit in conjunction with the lowered GST rates. This will help the home buyers as it will reduce the home acquisition cost for them. The real estate sector also looks forward to the implementation of uniform GST rates at one per cent for all segments.
To support the home buyers, we expect the government to extend the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) of PMAY for the middle-income group as well.
The sector also demands to extend both, 100 per cent tax deduction under section 80 IBA and the additional tax deduction of up to Rs 1.5 lakh for interest payments on housing loans taken for the affordable housing scheme, at least by a year till the market stabilises.
(The author is the Chairman and Managing Director at Shriram Properties Ltd)
(Published 30 January 2021, 13:10 IST)
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