MUMBAI: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concerns over the ''complete breakdown'' in the real estate sector due to several restrictions and ongoing lockdown over coronavirus pandemic.
In his letter to the PM, the NCP chief has stated that the real estate sector is in a state of a complete breakdown.
The veteran Maharashtra politician outlined that the real estate sector is suffering heavily due to massive outflux of labourers, halted work & sale for almost three months.
Pawar stated that stagnant consumer demand and impaired economic activities have taken a toll on this industry which contributes substantially to the national GDP.
Meanwhile, the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) has also written an open letter in this context and called for the immediate intervention of the Prime Minister to support the real estate sector.
“We have made a few recommendations like onetime restructuring, additional institutional funding, waiver of penal interest and policy innovations for triggering criterion of affordability for GST applicability and operationalization of SWAMIH fund, etc. to help the sector,’’ the CREDAI stated in its letter.
“In this distressful situation arising out of the COVID-19 calamity, we in the real estate sector seek immediate relief for our survival,” the real estate developer’s body, which represents over 20,000 developers, said in the letter, adding that liquidity crunch, stagnant demand and cartelisation of the raw material are major impediments for the industry.
The industry body has pitched for additional institutional funding, waiver of penal interest and customer-centric tax treatment of real estate, among others.
The industry body said for the survival of the real estate industry, it is absolutely critical that the stagnant demand for housing is revived and further boosted. For this, it has recommended that the government should reduce the maximum rate of interest on new home loans to 5% by subsidising the interest component of EMIs for next five years.
