State laws are against the idea of ‘ease of doing business’ and the Centre and States need to be in sync with respect to approvals and taxation in real estate business, Getamber Anand, President, Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) said on Wednesday.
CREDAI’s annual conclave on December 16-17 aims to focus on the need for Government policies to enable ease of doing business.
“The ease of doing business is a weighted average index, and 35 per cent of the weight is on building permits,” Rohit Raj Modi, Vice-President, CREDAI, said.
The meet will also focus on single window clearance, skill development in real estate, challenges related to environment and forests clearances, labour issues, among others.
“We have invited many Chief Ministers from Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, etc. Tax structures must be rationalised,” Anand said.
“For example, we are being asked to pay labour cess as well as Employees’ State Insurance. We are being raided time and again by Provident Fund Department. Contractors should be held responsible for non- payments of PF/ESI to labourers instead of developers as the principal employers. These issues need to be sorted out for the growth of real estate in India,” he added.
There is a duplication of tax in form of ESI/PF as the industry already pays one per cent labour cess to the government and about ₹27,000 crore is lying idle in that account, Modi added.