Policies

NEW DELHI: The government is seeking to mitigate the huge shortage of housing in cities around the country in an election year by proposing to set up an Urban Housing Fund   with an initial allocation of Rs 2,000 crore in 2013-14. This comes along with a move to provide Rs 6,000 crore of additional funds for the Rural Housing Fund.

NEW DELHI: Keen to move ahead with the   Land Acquisition Bill   in the current Parliament session, parliamentary affairs minister   Kamal Nath   has called a meeting of political parties on Thursday to address the concerns raised over the proposed legislation.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram while presenting his Budget today raised tax deduction limit by Rs 1 lakh for the first time home loan takers to promote the housing sector.

"...a person taking a loan for his first home from a bank or a housing finance corporation up to Rs 25 lakh during the period April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014 will be entitled to an additional deduction of interest of up to Rs 1 lakh," he announced while presenting Budget 2013-14 in Parliament.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram today announced a Rs 2,000 crore urban housing fund, while making luxury homes costlier by cutting abatement on service tax on a flat with a floor area of over 2,000 sq ft, or prices exceeding Rs 1 crore.

MUMBAI: Eighteen multi-storey buildings in the western suburbs have come under a cloud after the developer of a controversial Juhu building told the Supreme Court that, just like his 11-storey JVPD high-rise, these buildings too had plans with car parking decks on habitable floors.

Pappu Satra, the developer of the Juhu residential tower, was dragged to the Bombay high court for large-scale violations, including having car parking decks outside flats that allegedly could be later amalgamated into the flats' carpet areas. Satra has spilled the beans to the SC on 18 allegedly similar projects in Mumbai's western suburbs to justify his case.

Satra's JVPD Scheme project has become a test case for builders who build car parking slots adjoining apartments on higher floors. Civic activists allege that these slots are not really for parking, but are sold illegally at market rates and later surreptitiously amalgamated into the flat by the owner in connivance with the developer.

HYDERABAD : As signs appear of the real estate scene picking up, the Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (APHB) has decided to resume auction of plots in the city after a gap of four years. In the current phase of auction, which will take place on November 22, the board will put up 14 plots for auction in Kukatpally Housing Board (KPHB) Colony phases 4, 6, 9 and 15.

Nine plots are located in phase-15 of KPHB, close to Hi-Tec City , while there are two plots each in phase-9 and phase-6 and one in phase-4. Since the plots are in Kukatpally, the authorities are hoping to pocket about Rs 100 crore through the auction.

Officials said the APHB took the decision to auction plots after Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) auctioned some of its plots in August and could raise about Rs 125 crore.