Interest subvention scheme to continue The finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has extended by a year the one per cent interest subvention scheme for housing sector and provided Rs 700 crore for it in the budget for 2010-11. In his budget speech,the minister said I propose to extend the interest subvention scheme for housing sector to March 2011. Under the scheme,introduced last year,home buyers get one per cent interest subsidy for banking loans up to Rs 10 lakh provided the cost of house does not exceed Rs 20 lakh. Govt infuse more capital into IIFCL The finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has announced that the Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL) will disburse Rs 9,000 crore by March 2010 and disbursement will reach around Rs 20,000 crore by March 2011. He said IIFCL has also been authorised to refinance bank lending to infrastructure projects. It has refinanced Rs 3,000 crore during the current year and is expected to more than double that amount in 2010-11. Budget sops drive realty stocks up Following the announcement made of sops to the sector by the finance minister Pranab Mukherjee,the BSE Realty index rose as much as 5.6 percent in day trades,with top-listed developer DLF,Unitech and other sector firms Housing Development & Infrastructure,Omaxe climbing 3 to 7 percent. The sectoral index closed up 1.3 percent. Other realty sector stocks which reacted positively include -Ansal Housing (2.83 per cent),HDIL (six per cent) and Maytas Infra (4 per cent). Lending rates to be stable: SBI State Bank of India has said that banks' lending rates are expected to remain stable in the next five-six months. SBI chairman O P Bhatt said Lending rates are unlikely to move up in the next five- six months. This is because credit offtake is still muted and there is enough liquidity in the system,he said. However,there is movement on deposit rates side. It has already started moving up,Bhatt said,adding a couple of banks have already increased their deposit rates. No exemption from takeover Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has declined exemption from the application of the takeover code to Marathon Realty Private on the recommendation of the Takeover Panel. Marathon Realty also happens to be a promoter of the target company Citadel Realty and Developers Ltd,holds 26.51 per cent stake in the target company.
