The Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI)-Hyderabad has appealed to the State government to provide a limited waiver of 2% stamp duty for registration, quicker electricity and water supply connections and relaxation in levy of property tax to give a boost to the industry hit hard by COVID-19.
"Real estate companies all over the world are facing the challenge of stoppage of construction, shortage of labour, difficulty in sourcing raw materials, and other concerns caused by the pandemic. Further, delay in approvals for water and electricity is also causing inconvenience," said president P. Rama Krishna Rao and general secretary V. Rajashekar Reddy at a press conference on Friday.
Despite issues with Unlock-I and factors like getting building permissions, tax issues, labour shortage and price escalations of raw-materials, the industry is determined to get back on track. "Hyderabad holds tremendous potential for growth with many major infrastructural developments like building of strategic flyovers and rapid transit zones. These would not only add to the convenience of travel but also impact growth and recovery in post-COVID era. With low unsold residential inventory, the city will recover faster than many other cities across the country,” said Mr. Rao.
Mr. Reddy said that from 219 projects and 21,665 units registered with TS-Real Estate Regulatory Authority in 2017, the projects had increased to 448 and 31,559 units with with an estimated investment potential of Rs. 31,379 crore (March 2020), hence the outlook was very positive and would witness unprecedented growth in the next three to five years.
The CREDAI team also met Minister for IT & Municipal Administration K.T. Rama Rao and and sought his intervention in helping resolving issues of speedier permissions, tax rebates and so on to help the industry deal with COVID-19 crisis. “The pandemic is an unprecedented occurrence, which has severely impacted business and individuals alike. The lockdown imposed to contain the spread has severely impacted the construction activity, caused delays and impacted both developers and home buyers," said Mr. Rao.
The team thanked the government for permitting payment of development and impact fee in instalments, extending building permissions by 12 months without additional fee and offering to consider payment of 'nala' tax to the sanctioning authority to reduce delay and speed up registration.