Chandigarh, Feb 13 (PTI) It will be difficult for fund- starved Punjab to achieve the target of Rs 2,900 crore from property transactions for 2011-12 as Election Commission's tough measures for curbing misuse of money in elections led to a big drop in property buying and selling, officials said. Although the state government officials maintained they were hopeful of meeting the revenue target, they attributed the significant drop in property buying and selling to the Election Commission's tough measures for curbing misuse of money in elections last month. "There has been a significant impact on business transactions in the real estate market in Punjab because of heavy seizure of unaccounted cash on the directions of EC last month," a senior official of the Punjab Revenue Department said. Till December, 2011, the collection from stamp duty and registration fee stood at Rs 2,349 crore. Property experts pointed out that in the wake of sluggish market conditions, it would be tough for Punjab to collect Rs 550 crore in three months (January till March) to meet revenue collection target. During the last fiscal, Punjab failed to meet the revenue collection of Rs 2,300 crore from stamp duty and registration fee with actual collections reaching about Rs 2,200 crore. Confiscation of huge amount of unaccounted cash by surveillance teams to curb misuse of money power in Punjab elections had almost paralysed the real estate market, with buyers refraining from entering into any business deals. "Seizure of cash ahead of elections in Punjab hit the property market hard because people were scared of making any investment. There was hardly any property transaction taking place in the month of January," Punjab Property and Colonizers Association Chairman Anil Chopra said. Even after the polls that were held on January 30, things have not improved for the real estate sector as majority of investors, including NRI's still not committing investments until next state government comes in. "Property investors are waiting for the formation of new state government before putting in their money into real estate projects," said Chopra. Spiralling interest rates coupled with slackening demand for property has already made a significant dent on property market in Punjab, with sales prices of real estate products dipping by 15-20 per cent in the past six-seven months, property experts said.
