”There were several measures announced by the State and Central Government in 2020 to beat the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the overall economy and the real estate industry. Looking forward to this Union Budget, the residential segment of the realty space is expected to show signs of improvement if the Government can include expansion of the current income tax benefits available for home-buyers, increase the interest deduction to 3 lacs from current 2 lacs especially for the first-time buyers. The budget could consider further steps to improve affordability which will boost the affordable housing segment and contribute to the Government’s ‘Housing for All’ initiative. In order to continue attracting investor interest, the sector would be expecting measures for removing taxation related inefficiencies. We expect the Government to consider some relaxation in GST and should also introduce input tax credit on under-construction properties that would further stimulate the sector. It should introduce effective reforms that will help to ease the liquidity crunch that had a cascading impact across sectors, including real estate. The additional measures will surely spur the demand for investment in the coming quarters.”
