New Delhi: Being aware of the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic had a severe impact on country's housing and urban sector, experts believe that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would definitely give a major push to this sector to bring it on track.
ETV Bharat on Saturday talked with experts in the field of housing and urban affairs and tried to find out the areas that might get importance in this budget.
Prof Chetan Vaidya, former director of National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) believes that this budget would definitely witness a major hike in budgetary allocation in the field of housing and urban affairs.
"It is expected that this budget might witness a hike of 20 per cent increase in budgetary allocation," he said.
With a budgetary allocation of Rs 50,040 crore, the last Union Budget had witnessed a hike of 18 per cent over the previous year (2019-20).
He expects that the budget will witness additional funding for urban sector missions like Pradhan Awas Yojana (PMAY), Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and smart city mission.
"There is also a need for an increase in tax benefit for housing loan," said Prof Vaidya.
He expects that the government would certainly give emphasis on several critical sectors like increase in subsidy for municipal bonds, incentives for walkability in cities, urban health and national urban livelihood mission.
"It's also expected that focus on urban affordable rental housing and community level open spaces will be given in the budget given the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic had several affected the urban slums and migrant labourers," said Prof Vaidya.
Expectations are high to boost the demand in the real estate sector.
Also read: What are Maharashtra's expectations from the Union Budget?
"A major demand of the developers has been to remove the ban on subvention scheme for home loans. The national real estate development council (NAREDCO) in its recommendations to the finance ministry noted that the ban is not in favour of home buyers as a large proportion of them do not have the capacity to pay both EMIs on their home loans as well as house rent" said Samdish Sharma, economic and budget analyst.
According to Sharma, the budget might also highlight the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY-U) as the government aims housing for all urban poor by 2022.
As per sources in the government, the budget may also witness new announcements for metro connectivity, urban water mission among others.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India (CPI) claimed that the coming budget will be a capitalist friendly budget.
Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha from CPI Binoy Viswam said that the budget will be for the capitalists.
"It will be Adani-Ambani budget where common people will not get significance. The budget will not have any chance to address the real concern of the people. It will not give any solution to the workers' problem," said Viswam.
