The Maharashtra government has decided to levy a fee to grant its consent to companies and other bodies to raise money against leasing government-owned land, in an attempt to raise funds and fill the shortfall due to declining tax collections.
The state, which expects its revenue to fall by around Rs 2,000 crore this year, plans to levy charges of 0.25 per cent and 0.50 per cent of the loan amount for granting a no-objection certificate (NOC) to companies, educational institutes, hospitals and housing societies to raise loan using government-owned land.
The moves comes even as shares have lost more than half of their value in the past year and value of assets and inventories has declined making it difficult for companies and other entities to raise money.
According to the circular issued by the Maharashtra government on February 27, the government will charge a fee of 0.50 per cent from commercial and industrial establishments, while it will charge a flat rate of 0.25 per cent on the loan amount to grant the consent.
It may be recalled that last month, in a similar move to raise resources, the state government had removed the ceiling on registration fee charged on the sale of property. Earlier, the registration charges were levied at the rate of 1 per cent of the transaction value. However, these charges had a ceiling of Rs 30,000. But the state removed this ceiling and now registration charges are charged at a flat 1 per cent of the transaction value.
The Maharashtra government, which expected to raise around Rs 41,000 crore from taxes, including stamp duty and registration, motor vehicle tax and VAT, now expects to collect a little more than Rs 39,000 crore from taxes and other charges.
Besides, the state government’s decision to implement the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations is going to put an additional burden of Rs 8,000 crore annually, while its decision to waive off the loans of farmers who could not get the benefit of central government’s loan waiver scheme, is going to cost the state exchequer around Rs 6,200 crore.