MANGALURU: The state revenue through stamp and registration fee has taken a big hit post demonetisation, GST and RERA.While the state earned Rs 8248.78 crore under this revenue head during 2015-16, it dropped to Rs 7,830.77 in 2016-17. During the first eight months of this fiscal, only Rs 5,291.44 crore has been collected and going by the sluggish market, experts believe that it could hardly touch Rs 7,000 crore by the end of this fiscal.
While the steep fall in the revenue during 2016-17 was mainly attributed to demonetisation, during the current year, the lingering effects of note ban coupled with 12 per cent GST (7.5 per cent tax earlier) on under construction properties further slowed down the registrations, source said. Property registration offices in Bengaluru’s Jayanagar, Gandhinagar, Basavanagudi and Rajendra Nagar, Bengaluru Rural, Mysuru, Dharwad, Ramanagar, Kolar and others saw a huge decline.
Bengaluru Rural where the real estate was booming is hit hard compared to others. While the government collected Rs 368.75 crore in 2015-16, it came down to Rs 307.69 in 2016-17. During the current fiscal so far, it has managed to get just Rs 166.74 crore.
Mysuru and Dakshina Kannada have overtaken Bengaluru Rural in stamp and registration fee collection this year. However, Shivajinagar registration office which tops in revenue generation in the state appears to have not been hit in a big way by these factors. Its revenue went up from Rs 1,937.79 crore in 2015-16 to 1,970.78 crore in 2016-17.
Until November end this fiscal, it earned Rs 1369.36 crore. Even Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Tumakuru, Belagavi, Hassan, Ballari, Mandya and Kodagu did not suffer much. CREDAI state vice-president Pushparaj Jain said the real estate received a big jolt with demonetisation first which blocked the flow of black money.
Then it was GST and RERA which further dimmed the sector. Confusion among people about Benami Properties Act, sluggish economy in the Middle East which has resulted in job losses and pay cuts are the other factors.
Many builders to whom the Express spoke to said the new launch of properties has almost stopped in the last six months as there are no buyers.There is a lot of confusion among property buyers about RERA and Benami Properties Act and it may take at least a year for normalcy return, they said.
FALLING NUMBERS
Rs 5291.44 crore is the stamp and registration collected in the state till November during the current financial year
Rs 7,000 crore is the total projected collection in 2017-18
Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Tumakuru, Belagavi, Hassan, Ballari, Mandya and Kodagu have remained
relatively resilient