West Bengal extends stamp duty & circle rate sops for six months

The state government has again extended sops for real estate in this Budget till September 30, 2022 for six months. The state had allowed exemption of 2% rebate on stamp duty and 10% rebate on circle rate of land/property in the financial year 2021-22. The existing relief is coming to an end on March 31, 2022.

CM Mamata Banerjee said after budget that it has got a good response following the sops. The minister of state for finance Chandrima Bhattacharya stated in the Budget that home buyers have been very badly affected due to Covid pandemic, so keeping the interests of home buyers in mind, the Budget has proposed this.

The principal chief advisor to CM Amit Mitra later said there has been a 25% jump in revenue from July 2021 to March (first week) 2022, following the exemption on stamp duty and circle rate reduction. The sops for real estate were first introduced in July 2021 when Mitra was state finance minister. He added that 20 lakh deeds have been registered during the period which is also the highest ever so far. According to him, 256 registration offices are doing real time job. "Real estate has huge multiplier effect. It creates demand, generate employment so the total impact is huge. The 10% circle rate reduction would also reduce GST burden," he added.

The state took a laudable initiative of reducing the circle rate and stamp duty in last six months which has resulted in good sales of properties. However, the period December 15 to January 15 was not an auspicious period for Bengalis for buying any property. But the registration has gone up after January 15 and the sector in Bengal could contribute a whopping Rs 8,000 crore to state exchequer.