Anshuman Magazine, Chairman and CEO, India, South East Asia, Middle East and Africa, CBRE

The dynamics of the real estate sector and its stakeholders witnessed a significant impact due to the Covid-19 pandemic; however, we do believe that 2021 would pave the way for opportunity and recovery.

Budget 2021 could go a long way towards meeting this goal by way of introducing tax reforms such as enhancing the principal deduction limit on home loans under Section 80C of the IT Act, 1961; lowering the long-term gains tax for sale of house property and rationalising the GST for under-construction properties.

The government could also consider increasing the corpus of SWAMIH funds to provide last-mile funding to residential projects as well as undertake deep restructuring of real estate-related loans to smoothen the repayment process such as easing payback of redemption premiums. Enhanced focus on the real estate sector would have a far-reaching multiplier effect on the economy as it has forward and backward linkages to over 250 ancillary industries.