India Inc expects Budget 2018-19 to include GST reforms, friendly business policies

Arun Jaitley. Image: PTI/File

New Delhi: Tabled in Parliament on Monday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the Economic Survey has estimated that the Indian economy will grow by 7-7.5 percent in 2018-19, re-establishing India as the world's fastest-growing major economy. Every budget rides high on the expectations of taxpayers and the finance minister has a challenging task of balancing tax cuts and increased revenues and here's what India Incexpects from Budget 2018: "Considering the government's vision to achieve Housing for All by 2022, we believe affordable housing development requires a long-term perspective supported by easy home finance at very affordable interest rates. It is therefore, the honourable finance minister must offer sizeable support to the urban middle-class population in terms of higher limits of exemption on home loans in the Budget 2018-19. The housing finance companies like us have a key role to play in boosting the government's efforts towards affordable and low-cost housing in metros as well as in tier-II and III cities," said Monu Ratra, ED and CEO, India Infoline Housing Finance Limited. For the real estate sector, long pending demand of its recognition as industry, increase in tax rebate limit and single window clearance are among key expectations of the leaders. Getamber Anand, Chairman, CREDAI and CMD, ATS Infrastructure Ltd. said, "The real estate opportunity to boost GDP mustn't be missed by the Finance Ministry in this budget. We expect government to increase the exemption limits for deduction of interest from the income of the middle class and salaried homebuyer. Also the interest rates must further be rationalised as must tax rates as the burden is ultimately passed onto the consumer." He further elaborated, "On the supply side, we respect the changes that the government brought in last year into the sector by giving it "Infrastructure status for affordable housing", but RBI has not given any directions to the banks per se on reducing cost of capital for projects which qualify as infrastructure. Also under section 80 IB, the push for smaller houses is welcome but we have requested the government to increase the size from 30 and 60 sq. m. to 60 and 90 sq. m. because this is a practical size which is even aspirationally more attractive to the homebuyer." "Also for smaller towns the condition that 80 percent of FSI must be achieved is not practical and should be reduced to about 50 percent. Having said that we are very hopeful that the government in its wisdom like last year will bring in some new exciting announcements for the real estate sector this year too," he added. "We expect the honourable finance minister will announce increased tax rebate limit, so that the consumers may find more disposable income to buy their chosen dream homes. He should also give a sympathetic ear to the long pending demand of introducing single window clearance system in this budget to help the developers fulfil their promises to home buyers and ensure timely delivery of projects. We also expect the government to grant industry status to real estate sector to facilitate ease of doing business and access to construction loan at a cheaper cost. At Solitaire Group we aim to develop a slew of international quality residential projects and industry status, if granted, will surely become instrumental in turning our dreams into reality," said Arjunpreet Singh Sahni, Executive Director, Solitaire Group.