NEW DELHI: The real estate sector has requested the government to pay greater attention to the expansion of rental housing and provide higher tax benefit on home loans, in a pre-Budget consultation with the finance minister on Monday.
“Until now we are only talking about ownership housing but a focus needs to be given to rental housing as well,” managing director of Hiranandani Group and chairman of the National Real Estate Development Council Niranjan Hiranandani said after the meeting.
In the last Budget, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that rental housing with dormitory-type accommodation for industrial workers would be facilitated in the public-private partnership mode with viability gap funding support and commitment from anchor industries.
“So our idea is that we need to expand it to other people,” he said, adding that even in the richest country in the world, the United States, 50% of the people live in rental housing.
The pre-Budget consultation was attended by representatives from the infrastructure, energy and urban sectors, besides senior officials.
There were also discussions on giving infrastructure status to the housing sector and making funds available so that more affordable housing can come up.
Another proposal made at the meeting was increasing the exemption limit on interest on housing loans to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh.
The meeting also discussed redevelopment of slums in Mumbai. Besides Hiranandani, business chairman of GMR Group B V N Rao, managing director of Afcons Infrastructure S Paramasivan, and head indirect taxes at Larsen and Toubro Gurinder Pal Singh attended the consultations on infrastructure.
Representatives from the energy sector included chairman of ReNew Group Sumant Sinha, CEO of Waree Energy Pawan Kumar Agarwal. The urban development group had seven representatives.
Source: The Financial Express
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