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

25 Jan 2021 CW Staff

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.

Infrastructure Transport

12 Mar 2026

Kavach 4.0 Commissioned on Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah

"Kavach version four has been commissioned on 1,452 route km, covering the high density Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah corridors. The rollout included laying 8,570 km of optical fibre, installation of 1,100 telecom towers, deployment of trackside equipment over 6,776 RKm and establishment of 767 station data centres. Trackside implementation has been taken up on 24,427 RKm covering Golden Quadrilateral, Golden Diagonal and High Density Network sections. The programme aims to strengthen signalling and train protection on key routes.Kavach is an indigenously developed automatic train protecti..

Railways Advance Kalyan–Murbad Line And Mumbai Capacity Expansion

"Indian Railways is advancing multiple rail infrastructure projects in Maharashtra, including the sanctioned Kalyan–Murbad new line and sizable investments under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project and the Mumbai–Ahmedabad High Speed Rail project. The Kalyan–Murbad 28 km new line has been sanctioned at Rs 8.36 billion (bn) on a 50:50 cost-sharing basis with the Government of Maharashtra and has been declared a Special Railway Project for land acquisition; proposals covering 214 hectares are at various stages of acquisition. Budgetary outlay for projects falling fully or partly in Maharash..

Parliamentary Panel Flags Funding Gaps in Heavy Industries

"The Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry (Rajya Sabha) presented its 332nd report on the Demands for Grants 2026-27 of the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI). Figures converted from crore and lakh are expressed in million (mn). The Budget Estimates 2026-27 for the Ministry stand at Rs 79,399 mn against a projected requirement of Rs 94,843.2 mn, a shortfall of about 16 per cent, with revenue at Rs 79,370.8 mn and capital compressed to Rs 28.2 mn from Rs 5,020 mn.The committee flagged recurring BE-to-RE compression and declining revised estimate utilisation, and calle..