The registration of property documents as well as collection of stamp duty and registration fees witnessed a massive jump in Gujarat for the month of March.
The registration of property documents galloped by a whopping 106% with 1,61,693 lakh documents being registered across the state in March 2021, when Covid-19 cases began spiralling. As against this, the number of property documents registered stood at 78,584 in March 2020, shows data compiled by the state’s Inspector General of Registration and Superintendent of Stamps.
The collection of stamp duty and registration fees by the state government also jumped 146% to Rs 1,235 crore this March from Rs 501 crore during the same month last year. Both the number of documents and state’s revenues from the stamp duty and registration fees saw the year’s highest growth in March.
“Reports about hike in Jantri (ready reckoner) rates from April and improvement in real estate market during January-March quarter may have led to a rise in registration of property documents as well as collection of stamp duty and registration fees,” said Ashish Patel, president, CREDAI-Gujarat, a body of real estate developers.
Signalling a strong recovery, the sales of housing units in Ahmedabad rose 34% to 3,045 units in January-March 2021 from 2,268 units in the same quarter last year, stated a report by the real estate consultant Knight Frank India.
Also, the property document registrations remain high in March from the point of view of taxation as it is the last month of a fiscal year, added industry players.
Although there has been a steady growth in registration of property documents and stamp duty collection on month-on-month basis since September, the market disruption in the first five months of 2020-21 due to the lockdown and the slowdown induced by the pandemic has marred the overall number of registration and stamp duty mop up for the full financial year.
The state’s income from the stamp duty and registration fees declined by 4% to Rs 7,364 crore in 2020-21 from Rs 7,697 crore in the pre-Covid era of 2019-20. Similarly, the number of documents registered stood at 11.48 lakh in 2020-21 as compared to 12 lakh in the previous fiscal.
