The Industry and the Revenue Departments are at loggerheads over several issues including introduction of the ‘e-stamp’, online sale of stamp papers, and mechanism on the lines of Value Added Tax to deal with revision of land prices.
Real estate developers are pitching for the e-stamp facility as it is more convenient and curtails the use of paper and process-related fraudulent practices. Once introduced, the system would enable storage of information in the electronic format and build a centralised land data bank that would facilitate easy registration and avoid leakage of government revenues.
Franking system
The Federation of AP Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FAPCCI) said that the system had been successfully implemented in neighbouring Karnataka and Gujarat and a similar initiative could be put in place in the State too. “The Registration department is any way using the franking system for registration and the introduction of e-stamp system should not be difficult in the State which has pioneered several initiatives on the online services side,” Gowra Srinivas, FAPCCI urban infrastructure committee chairman said.
Real estate developers had been frequenting the offices of the Registration department ‘pushing hard’ for putting in place such a mechanism as it would usher in transparency in the transactions as also overcome troubles when there was a shortage of stamp papers that was delaying registration. Revenue Secretary Vinod Kumar Agarwal said: “The proposed system cannot be put in place unless several issues are examined.”
The other issue where the real estate developers are unhappy with the department is the introduction of a system to do away with periodic revision of land prices as also eliminate cascading of multiple stamp duties. They favoured a system on the lines of indexation introduced by the Income Tax department that would do away with periodic revision and instead, valuation would be continuously changing as indexation takes care of inflation every year.
Mr. Agarwal also turned down the request of the real estate developers to introduce indexation, claiming land deals were different from general services in that transactions occurred in only 10 per cent of the land while 90 per cent owners held the ownership for long tenures. The department had, instead, put in place a new system from the current fiscal where revision would not be applicable across the board and it would be taken up on a case by case basis. “There could be five per cent increase in one case and 100 per cent in another. There could be decrease in land prices in some other cases,” he said.
Market-driven system
The new system is basically market-driven and would take into considerations various factors including quality of construction, developments that took place in the locality in the past and total upward development in the land values before an appropriate pricing revision is arrived at.
Andhra Pradesh Real Estate Developers Association president P. Dasarath Reddy, however, expressed confidence that the e-stamp facility would be a reality as soon as the anywhere registration is put in place. The authorities concerned assured the association that the online process would encompass mutations at the sub-registrar offices once their linking was completed.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/government-real-estate-sector-at-loggerheads/article4641866.ece
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