Construction and real estate industry should push for bringing the entire sector under the GST as early as possible to solve major problems of the sector, Group of Ministers on Real Estate under GST regime Secretary Manish Kumar Sinha suggested on Wednesday.
The group of ministers will soon meet and address all issues, Mr Sinha said while speaking at an interactive session on ‘Decoding Union Budget – A Real Estate Perspective’ organised by the FICCI.
Mr Sinha said the Government is very sensitive to this sector and doing the best it can. The government is aware of the fact that real estate is one of the key sectors, provides jobs and contributes, directly and indirectly, around 8-10 per cent to the GDP.
Mr Sinha highlighted that post-GST, tax rates have come down to 12 per cent which was 20 per cent earlier. To boost the affordable and mid-segment housing, availability of credit is essential for growth.
FICCI Real Estate Committee Chairman Sanjay Dutt said the demand in the office sector is growing strongly, but on the other hand, the demand of residential space has not seen that kind of growth and is currently where it was few years back. In order to bring back the demand, he suggested that the developers should construct, design and build houses keeping in mind the end-user.
FICCI-EY White Paper on ‘Indian Real Estate: Demystifying the new tax and regulatory environment’ was also released during the event which highlights the key tax and accounting issues impacting the real estate sector.