#WeeklyRoundup: Union Budget 2017 Aims To Boost Affordable Housing [Video]
Description
The biggest news this week comes for affordable housing developers as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced in his Budget 2017 speech that affordable housing will be given infrastructure status. Apart from this, carpet area instead of the built up area of 30 and 60 sq mt will be counted in affordable housing. The 30 sq mt limit will apply only in case of municipal limits of 4 metropolitan cities. For the rest of the country, including in the peripheral areas of metros, limit of 60 sq mt. will apply.
Initiating stringent action against black money holders post-demonetisation, the income-tax department has reportedly issued 87 notices countrywide and attached bank deposits worth crores in 42 cases under the newly enforced Benami Transactions Act. The law attracts a heavy penalty and rigorous jail term of a maximum seven years.
The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has put on hold an order by the former district collector divesting over 400 acres of prime land worth Rs 3,000 crore from the civic body that was being claimed by private real estate developers and individuals. The land was earlier with the gram panchayat and came to MCG in 2010, two years after the municipal corporation was formed.
The Tamil Nadu government is ready to tighten the screws on developers failing to meet delivery deadlines. Developers failing to deliver housing projects in time may land in jail, says the draft rules for the real estate act released by the Tamil Nadu government. The Tamil Nadu Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Rules, 2016, also mandate registration of agents engaged in the realty sector but the rules do not address the vital issue of the single window system.
To incorporate environmental conditions framed by the Union ministry of environment, the Chandigarh administration has decided to not force owners of housing projects and big buildings to take environmental clearance as long as they are following the green rules. Under the new diktat, if the environment conditions are integrated with the building bylaws of a 5,000 sq m property or above, separate environment clearance for individual buildings is not needed.