Realty sector upbeat over 33% rise in infrastructure allocation in Kolkata – Indiatimes.com

Kolkata News
KOLKATA: The real estate industry in Kolkata has welcomed the push for sustainable cities, 66% rise in allocation for affordable housing and continued focus on infrastructure where allocation has increased by 33%.
But they fear the capping of deduction from capital gains on residential property at Rs 10 crore could negatively impact high-value investment. Also, many felt incentivising the shift from the old tax regime to the new one could lead to a dip in investment in housing among the salaried class.

Siddharth Pansari, the president of the Bengal chapter of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (Credai), felt the Budget allocation of Rs 79,000 crore on the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) scheme would give a major boost to the affordable housing sector and help a wide segment of home buyers.
“Increasing the outlay is the positive way of continued momentum to the affordable housing sector,” said Jain Group MD Rishi Jain.
The rebate limit on personal income tax increased to Rs 7 lakh and reduction of surcharge from 37% to 25% for high tax payers will also result in more disposable income in the hands of people and should result in additional spends that should positively impact real estate, Pansari said.
According to Credai-West Bengal president Sushil Mohta, the reliefs to the middle class in the Budget could fuel growth of the affordable housing segment or rental residential segment. But he was disappointed that finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not mention any sops on increasing the limit of home loan interest deduction in income-tax returns.
“There should have been a separate deduction for the repayment of the principal amount of home loans, which is currently clubbed under section 80C. At present, the ceiling of the deduction is Rs 1.5 lakh. There was no announcement of the raising of the overall ceiling of section 80C to Rs 5 lakh,” he said, adding that the Budget also did not reduce capital gains tax and did not introduce new lending avenues for developers.
He was also disappointed that no waivers or reduction of GST was announced on raw materials like cement and steel that would have boosted the real estate segment. Realtors operating in the office-space segment felt the tax benefit to start-ups could lead to an uptick in office space development.
But it was the spike in investment in PMAY that piqued everyone’s interest. “This is a boost for affordable housing, which was flagging due to increased input costs and also because the buyers in this segment, mostly from the unorganized sector, were reeling under the impact of the pandemic,” said real estate consultants Anarock Group chairman Anuj Puri.
Siddha Group MD Sanjay Jain, too, felt improved infrastructure that will come up by leveraging the Urban Infrastructure Development Fund (UIDP) will attract more home buyers as better connectivity is a definite attraction.
Abishek Bhardwaj, the chief marketing officer of Shristi Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd, said the UIDF that was aimed at creating urban infrastructure in tier-II and tier-III cities would attract developers and home buyers to those geographies.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiigFodHRwczovL20udGltZXNvZmluZGlhLmNvbS9jaXR5L2tvbGthdGEvcmVhbHR5LXNlY3Rvci11cGJlYXQtb3Zlci0zMy1yaXNlLWluLWluZnJhc3RydWN0dXJlLWFsbG9jYXRpb24taW4ta29sa2F0YS9hcnRpY2xlc2hvdy85NzUzOTcwNS5jbXPSAY4BaHR0cHM6Ly9tLnRpbWVzb2ZpbmRpYS5jb20vY2l0eS9rb2xrYXRhL3JlYWx0eS1zZWN0b3ItdXBiZWF0LW92ZXItMzMtcmlzZS1pbi1pbmZyYXN0cnVjdHVyZS1hbGxvY2F0aW9uLWluLWtvbGthdGEvYW1wX2FydGljbGVzaG93Lzk3NTM5NzA1LmNtcw?oc=5