E-Paper
No decision yet on reducing stamp duty again: Balasaheb Thorat
PUNE Maharashtra revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat on Sunday said no decision has been taken to reduce the stamp duty again
PUNE Maharashtra revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat on Sunday said no decision has been taken to reduce the stamp duty again. Developers have demanded to reduce the stamp duty to at least to 2% till March 2022, similar to what government had done to help real estate sector. On being asked about if government is planning to reduce the stamp duty again, revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat asserted that no such decision has been discussed yet.
The government of Maharashtra had slashed stamp duty after the first Covid wave and it had generated more revenue for the state government. “After the first Covid wave we had taken a decision for 6 month to reduce the stamp duty. This decision had positive results. Many transactions got registered. It helped people who bought homes. The decision helped developers as well. Even if we had given concession , we got more revenue from that duration than the last year. But we haven’t decided anything about implementing this again. We had given this concession for 6 months now it has stopped and the stamp duty has return to its previous levels again,” said Balasaheb Thorat, revenue minister while interacting with media representatives in the Pune collector office.
Maharshtra government on August 26, 2020 had decided to temporarily cut the stamp duty on housing from 5% to 2% until December 31, 2020. Stamp duty from January 1, 2021 was kept at 3% up to March 31, 2021, when it was reinstated to 5 %.
Meanwhile, Thorat asked to exercise caution on the decision of giving relaxations from the Covid induced curbs. “We are facing the risk of third wave and exercising precaution. Citizens life is of most important. While focusing on that, life can be brought to normal. But after easing some curbs all the safety measures go for the toss. In my own district cases have started to rise again,” said Balasaheb Thorat.
