#WeeklyNewsRoundup: Govt Bans Notes, Property Prices May See A Correction

Weekly News Roundup is PropGuide's selection of the week's top stories from the real estate sector.

With the Central government demonetising 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, property prices are likely to see a correction in short-to-medium term. This will also help bring more transparency into the sector.

The Centre will soon come up with a single-window clearance facility to accord speedy approval for construction of buildings with a time limit of 60 days. This was stated by Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu who added that the plan was to speed up the process to ensure transparency, avoid delays and corruption.

The Centre has extended the timeline for the states to notify the Real Estate Act. Now, all states have got time until November 27 to notify the regulations. If states still fail to meet this timeline, the Centre can approach for another extension. Meanwhile, the government is planning to ask states to set up interim real estate regulators and start basic functions such as registration of projects till the time the final regulator is set up. Only Haryana has appointed an interim regulator till now.

Country's biggest public sector bank, the State Bank of India will raise Rs 5,000 crore to fund infrastructure and affordable housing by issuing long-term infra bonds. The bonds are to be issued on a private placement basis.

Two stretches of the Hyderabad Metro Rail are expected to be thrown open to public by the middle of next year. The Hyderabad Metro's eight-km-long stretch between Nagole and Mettuguda and the 12-km journey between Miyapur and SR Nagar may commence commercial operations on June 2.