CHENNAI: The Budget has not provided the much-awaited policy changes or for that matter the much-needed land reforms to help the housing sector, said T Chitty Babu, President, Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), Tamil Nadu Chapter.
Speaking to Express, he said, “Though the current budget can help the infrastructure sector in terms of generation of thousands of jobs in the construction industry by stimulating the works on metro rail, food parks and projects relating to airport, surface transport and major and minor ports, the absence of a solid policy framework to guide the realty sector is a major cause of concern.’’
The real estate industry did expect much on the SEZ and SRZ front from the budget, but there was no indication of any thing on that count, except the imposition of MAT on developers as well as units operating in SEZs, he lamented.
“There are also some disturbing trends that the cement prices may face another bout of hike, which, in any case, is likely to create endless problems to the construction industry. The excise duty burden on cement is to the tune of `2 to `3 per bag,’’ he said and added,
“The budget indeed has failed to address the needs of the building industry, particularly in the area of affordable houses.’’
The positive thing is the interest rate subvention of 1 per cent on housing loans of `5 lakh (previously `10 lakh) on a property value of `25 lakh (previously `20 lakh) and the housing loans of `25 lakh (previously `20 lakh) as priority sector loans, besides the setting up of a mortgage risk guarantee fund under Rajiv Awaas Yojana to help EWS and LIG households.