Rate tweak drives up stamps & registration revenue

HYDERABAD: Despite being in the red for two successive years, the registration and stamps department is buoyant over growth and collection of revenues this year.
Having reached 97.95 per cent of the target for this financial year, the department bosses are happy at reaching a growth rate of 43.29 per cent this year as against a negative growth rate of 9.18% and 7.9% in 2009-10 and 2008-09 respectively, mainly due to the downturn in the real estate market.
Another important aspect cited by senior officials for the growth rate has been the changes in market values for dry, wet, garden and survey number-wise values for the classifications of agriculture land fit for house sites and lands abutting national and state highways in rural areas. This aspect is reflected in the steep rise in revenue collections and a steady drop in the number of registered sale deeds. The number of sale deeds registered in the last four years are 11,09,034 in 2007-08, 10,15,073 in 2008-09, 9,94,396 in 2009-10 and 8,15,865 in 2010-11 (up to November 2010).
The net revenue achieved by the department this financial year till January 2011 is Rs 2,882.77 crore as against a target of Rs 3,546 crore (an achievement of 97.95%). The net revenue was Rs 3,086.35 crore in 2007-08, Rs 2,842,56 crore in 2008-09 and Rs 2,599.81 crore in 2009-10.
Responding to queries on the department's performance, a senior stamps official said on condition of anonymity on Sunday that the department regularly was taking up the study of trends in market value of the lands and determining the value to be adopted by the parties at the time of execution of documents for proper payment of stamp duty and registration fee. "The cases of under valuations by the parties for levy of stamp duty and registration fee has been reduced by compulsory adoption of the market value fixed by the department. We have revised values in both urban and rural areas from August 1, 2010," he said.
Another key contributor to the increase in revenues has been the change in block-wise values for residential areas and door number-wise values for commercial and industrial areas. Apart from these, the department has for the first time fixed composite values (combined value for land and construction) for assessment of market value of apartments and flats in urban areas.