State government plan for its own Stamp Act

To avoid delay in State amendments to Central legislation

The government is planning to have its own Stamp Act to avoid the delay in bringing in State amendments to the Central legislation, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said on Tuesday.

In a suo motu statement in the Assembly, she said that the subject was governed by the Indian Stamp Act, 1899. At present, whenever the government wanted to effect changes, it had to pass a Bill in the legislature and send it to the President for consent.

“To avoid the delay, a separate Stamp Act for the State will be enacted,” she said, pointing out that Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala and Rajasthan had their own Stamp Act.

To reduce the burden caused by the recent upward revision of guideline value of properties on poor people, the government has raised the exemption limit for property transactions. Till now, only properties valued at Rs.5,000 or below qualified for exemption from stamp duty and registration charges. From now on property valued at Rs.25,000 and below will get the exemption, she said.

In her efforts to provide separate buildings for sub-registrar offices, Ms. Jayalalithaa said that this year, the government would construct integrated complexes for the Registration Department in 17 places while 48 sub-registrar offices would have their own buildings.

The construction would be carried out at a cost of Rs.41.70 crore.

In the first phase, construction works would begin for 52 sub-registrar offices at Rs.26 crore, for which orders had been issued.

Similarly, buildings for commercial taxes offices in 10 places would be taken up at a cost of Rs.12.50 crore. As registration and commercial taxes earned sizeable revenue for the government to focus on welfare schemes, the government was keen to modernise and computerise the two departments.