The Builders’ Association of India (BAI) has requested the Tamil Nadu government to reduce the stamp duty and registration charges to a maximum 4%, similar to States like Maharashtra and Karnataka. The construction industry has been hit due to the pandemic, the BAI said.
BAI southern centre chairman L. Shantha Kumar said stamp duty in Tamil Nadu was the highest when compared to other States and it was a huge burden on the buyers who had to pay 11% stamp duty and registration charges. “All other States have cut down on stamp duty charges,” he said.
Recently, the governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka reduced stamp duty and registration charges from 5% to 3% to boost their realty sector.
The association also sought clearance of several bills due to contracts pending with various government departments.
The BAI further sought the revision of water tax and sewerage charges, as per the rates in force prior to financial year 2018-19.
“The water and sewerage taxes, that are being calculated according to annual rental value assessed by the Corporation of Chennai were not revised to earlier rates even after the government rolled back the hike in property tax in Chennai,” Mr. Kumar said. “The CMWSSB is not complying with the above orders and is still collecting water tax and sewerage charges in enhanced rates, ignoring the government orders,” he charged.
The BAI favoures an online single-window system for local, DTCP and CMDA approvals similar to Telangana, which has adopted the “Telangana State Building Permission Approval and Self Certification System (TS-bPASS)”, that provides building permission approvals within 21 days without any hassles. If the builder does not get a permission within 21 days, an automatic approval will be generated on the following day, reducing the time to get permission approvals.
