BENGALURU: Despite the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdown, Karnataka saw registration of 18.85 lakh properties during the financial year 2020- 2021, generating revenue of Rs 10,480 crore. Data shared by the Stamps and Registration department reveals that revenue touched 82.82 per cent of the target.
Officials say this is laudable in the face of the severe dent caused by Covid, as registration of properties could not even commence when the financial year 2020-21 began. “Sub-registrar offices were shut and commenced operations only on April 24, 2020. Instead of the normal range of 1.55 lakh to 1.85 lakh properties being registered a month, only 3,734 registrations were done in Apri l . I t touched 91,168 properties in May.”
Since then, registrations have ranged between 1.7 lakh and 1.8 lakh properties per month, with a slight dip in July which saw 1.55 lakh registrations, he pointed out. As has been the norm, the highest number of 2,12,334 registrations happened in March. “Despite the Covid outbreak, we registered a total of 18,85,705 properties in the year ending March 31, 2021, a little lower than 19,57,883 registrations by March 31, 2020,” the official said.
The registration revenue generated was Rs 10,480 crore, short of the target of Rs 12,655 crore, another official said. “Revenue for the previous financial year was Rs 11,451 crore. We reached 91.53% of last year’s revenue achievement, which is big, considering the kind of devastation the pandemic wreaked on the economy,” he added.
The revenue secretary could not be reached for his response. Asked to explain the resilience shown by the State, Anuj Puri, Chairman, ANAROCK Property Consultants said, “Driven by the IT/ITeS sectors, the City (Bengaluru) has always been one of the most resilient residential markets among the top seven cities, largely driven by end users. It has seen steady growth in the last few years, even while other cities like NCR or MMR were struggling amidst the reformatory changes. Moreover, city developers are known to keep a balance between their unsold inventory and new launches, and they consciously focus on project completions rather than just launching new projects.” ANAROCK data reveals that the city saw total sales amounting to approximately 8,670 units in the first quarter of 2021.