Mumbai's stamp duty revenue collection for FY 2023-24 crosses ₹50,400 crore, up 13% from last year, driven by real estate sector growth and government efforts.

Mumbai:  The revenue collection from the stamp duty registration in the financial year 2023-24 has crossed ₹50,400 crore, with a whopping 13% rise over last year’s collection, thanks to the continued buoyancy in the real estate sector and government drive to recover dues. Real estate has proven to be the second highest contributor after GST and sales tax.

The state reported the collection of ₹50,400 crore on March 31, which is ₹5700 crore more than last year’s (FY 2022-23) collection of ₹44,682 crore. After attractive collections last year, the state government had set a target of ₹45,000 crore, but after the high collection in the first six months, the target was revised to ₹50,000 crore, which was crossed on March 31. Over 27.5 documents, including real estate deals, agreements between companies etc, in the financial year ended on Sunday. The number of documents registered in FY 2022-23 was 25.76 lakh and 23.84 lakh a year before it.

Hiralal Sonawane, inspector general of registration, said that the special drive for the recovery of the pending stamp duty from various sources. “The amnesty scheme introduced for the disputed pending cases earned us ₹258 crore, while other drives implemented across the state for the recovery of the old dues have helped us in recovery. We tied up with government authorities like Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, public works and cooperation departments for the stamp duty on agreements signed for the tenders. This collectively has added more than ₹500 crore in the revenue collection. This has happened despite having not made a hike in the ready reckoner rates last year,” he said.

Sonawane said that the whopping collection was due to rigorous recovery rather than the boost in the real estate sector as the number of registrations has not increased much.

Pankaj Kapoor of Liases Foras Real Estate Rating & Research Pvt Ltd said, “This has been the indication of robust amount of transactions, high sales owing to high supply and new launches. The prices of the inventory have been productive and the phase of the sector is progressive. This, along with the transparency brought in by MahaRera has built up confidence among consumers, who have also started buying for investment purposes. The pendency period of the inventory has come down to 30-35 months from 60 months, and most (around 75%) of the stalled projects are pre-MahaRera period,” Kapoor said that government steps like not hiking the ready-reckoner rate would help keep the tempo going even in the new financial year 2024-25.