Aniket Haware, Managing Director Haware Builders
NEW DELHI: In the run up to the democratic year, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at the outset highlighted that strengthening the rural economy, infrastructure, quality of education and the MSME’s Agriculture was the focus of the Budget 2018-19, according to Aniket Haware, Managing Director Haware Builders.
“Focus on the growth of Smart Cities, digitization, sustainability, the provision of basic utilities shows an ongoing commitment towards expansion. The budget also highlights the formation of additional construction and urban development bodies to fulfill the much needed skill gap in the built environment. The additional commitment to rural affordable housing is also a welcome addition, as is the recapitalization that allows banks to lend Rs.5 lakh crore,” he said.
“Affordable housing, where the real deficit exists, saw an encouraging boost with the creation of a dedicated Affordable Housing Fund by the National Housing Bank (NHB) to address the issue of funding constraints faced by all stakeholders. GST rates should have come down for real estate that would have helped middle income group from pricing point. Except tax benefit for the slab from 2.5lakhs to 5 lakhs, no announcement is made related to Housing loan, interest rate etc,” Haware added.