Alarmed over the slump in real estate business in Uttarakhand since the hike of circle rates for evaluating stamp duty, Chief Minister B C Khanduri on Sunday reversed his own decision by rolling back the rates.Since November 1, 2007, land in Dehradun had become the costliest in the country after the BJP Government increased the circle rates for evaluating stamp duty from 25 per cent to 300 per cent for different areas. In the Rajpur Road area, the circle rate for stamp duty was hiked from the earlier Rs 13,000 per sq metre to Rs 50,000 per sq metre. However, the hike resulted in a slump in the real estate business and invited criticism of the Government. “On public demand, we have decided to roll back the circle rates to 150 per cent of the enhanced rates of different rate slabs,” Khanduri announced on Sunday. As per the Stamps and Registration Act, the state Government gets stamp duty on the registration of property. Stamp duty is calculated as per the real market value of the property. Since the issue of real market value has remained a bone of contention, the Government announces the circle rates of various areas of the state for the evaluation of the stamp duty. These circle rates are revised every two years. After the enhancement of the circle rates in Dehradun since November, anyone buying property in the Rajpur road locality has to pay stamp duty of 10 per cent on a minimum of Rs 50,000 per square metre of land purchased. A person buying a 100 square metre land had to pay a minimum stamp duty of Rs 5 lakh. Any buyer buying one bigha of land in the area had to pay Rs 40 lakh as stamp duty as the land was valued at Rs 4 crore. The Government had a target of mopping Rs 465 crore from stamp duty. But the decision created panic among the builders and land realtors.
