Budget 2015: Govt Move to Push Infra Development Will Lead to Housing Growth

In a recently conducted boardroom discussion, organised by commonfloor.com in Bengaluru, realty experts collectively applauded the government for its initiatives to boost infrastructure growth across the country in its Budget 2015-16. They termed it as “a good step in the right direction” because infrastructure growth will unswervingly impact the real estate sector at large.

However, besides infrastructure push, the panel felt that the budget didn’t meet their expectations as it didn’t delve on the low hanging fruits which were of paramount importance in bringing back consumers into the market. Some of these common issues included ‘Industry Status,’ incentives to boost Affordable Housing, relaxation in taxes, land reforms, amongst others.

Analysing the Budget in detail, Irshad Ahmed, President, Irshad Property Matters, labelled it as “both surprising and a little disappointing as it failed to touch upon the realty sector directly.” But speaking on a positive note, he cited the example of the progress of Delhi-Mumbai Infrastructure Corridor (DMIC) and stressed upon the importance of infrastructure projects on the realty sector. He added, “if infrastructure projects are well implemented, a lot of developments could happen including improved connectivity between cities and the quality of living of the people.”

Deliberating further on the key low points of the Union Budget, Praveen Kumar, COO – Commercial and Retail – BREN Corporation stated, that “the budget lacks clarity in regards to provisions for making ‘housing for all’ a reality. Even though the government mentioned about 6 crore housing units (2 crore urban and 4 crore rural housing) to come up by 2022, it failed to talk about the support it would provide to implement it.

Speaking on a positive note, Sanjay Ramanujam, CEO, BCIL, said, “Further development of infrastructure, as promised in the budget, would lead to rapid urbanisation and growth in the housing sector across the country.”

Continuing further, he stressed on creating an environment that can instil confidence for the infrastructure apparatus to come in and create the required quality of development. He also didn’t refrain from mentioning that “the government should refrain from any backflip on taxation and regulatory issues.”

He quoted an example of SEZs where the government extended a slew of tax concessions while introducing SEZs, which are now to be rolled back.