In some relief for property buyers, builders and developers, the stamps and registration department has reduced stamp duty in the city by 0.5%, which was being recovered for Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) for the last 83 years. However, the decision is a major setback for the cash-strapped Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), as it is yet to get the revenue from this even though it has taken over all areas of NIT.
An official from stamps and registration department said stamp duty is now 7% as against 7.5% with effect from December 1. “It has been done as per orders of stamps collector AS Ughde,” the official said.
In a letter, Ughde said, “There was provision in section 77 of the NIT Act 1936 for recovering 0.5% stamp duty from all transactions in areas coming under NIT’s jurisdiction. The state government through a notification dated August 27 had handed over all NIT areas, especially seven schemes, to NMC. Thus, NIT has no areas under its jurisdiction. Therefore, the stamp duty being recovered for NIT needs to be stopped.”
The stamps and registration department used to collect 0.5% stamp duty from all transactions across the city and hand it over to NIT. After some court orders, the department started to recover stamp duty from areas under NIT jurisdiction only. NIT used to get around Rs12.50 crore per annum.
The reduction in duty is good news for property buyers, builders and developers, as it was one of the highest in the state.
The government had handed over all areas of NIT to NMC with effect from August 27, as per provisions in NIT Act. Areas transferred by NIT to NMC are mostly unauthorized and under-developed. This is being seen as a big financial burden on NMC, which is already reeling under a financial crisis. But the civic body has not got the stamp duty collected for NIT.
Municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar told TOI he would pursue the issue with the government. “I will have to check under which provision NIT was getting stamp duty, and whether it can be transferred to NMC. If possible, we will leave no effort to get it as we need new revenue source especially for areas taken over from NIT,” he said.
NMC is also getting stamp duty of 1% since abolition of octroi in April 2013.
Basic stamp duty is 5% of total value of property. The government had imposed 0.5% duty for NIT, another 1% for NMC and another 1% for Metro Rail Project. Thus, stamp duty in the city was 7.5%.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
