Mumbai: 239 deals in a day net Rs 29 crore in stamp duty

MUMBAI: Monday brought cheer to the Stamp Duty and Registration department as a record 239 documents were registered in the city in a single day since the lifting of the lockdown.
The state earned Rs 29 crore in stamp duty and registration fees in Mumbai alone. Most of the documents that have been registered are for the sale of property.
“Since May 8, when offices reopened, daily transactions have been around Rs 6-12 crore.Today’s big jump in revenue has been on account of some big deals,” said a senior official from the Stamp Duty and Registration office.
Covid-19 norms hit registration of documents
The stamp duty registration offices resumed operations with minimal staff and strict social distancing measures including no sharing of pens. Anyone wanting to register documents has to obtain an online pass to visit the sub-registrar’s office.
“Normally a sub-registrar’s office registers 40-50 documents in a day but due to the numerous restrictions hardly a few documents get registered each day,” said a source.
Last year the state government mopped up Rs 27,000 crore in stamp duty and registration fee against Rs 28,277 crore in 2018-19 and Rs 26,118 crore in 2017-18. In its 2020-21 budget, the state government had announced a 1% cut in stamp duty charges for the next two years on properties falling under the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and municipal corporations of Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad and Nagpur. It is now effectively 5%.