Bengal has recorded a 33 per cent jump in stamp duty and registration fee collections in 2021-22, reaping the benefits of bringing down the rate of tax by 2 per cent and the circle rate by 10 per cent.

The state earned Rs 7,366.4 crore on this head against Rs 5,527 crore earned in the previous year, a report by brokerage firm Motilal Oswal said.

This is the highest revenue the Bengal government has ever earned from stamp duty and registration fees, a prime source of its tax revenues.

Going by the collections from this source, Bengal stands at the 10th place among the Indian states.

Maharashtra, which boasts of two important micro markets such as Mumbai and Pune, tops the chart, followed by Uttar Pradesh.

Both the states have significantly increased their income from this count despite a high base.

Tamil Nadu and Karnataka were in the third and fourth spots, respectively, ahead of Telangana, which managed to double its tax collection from this head reporting an increase of 136 per cent compared with 2020-21.

Harsh Vardhan Patodia, president of Credai, the body of real estate developers, said the demand has been very strong over the last 5-6 quarters.

“There was strong demand from all vectors, residential, commercial and office space and the revenue collection reflects that. However, it is getting challenging again with input cost pressure and interest rate spike,” he said.

The cumulative revenue collection from stamp duty and registration charges from 27 states and one Union territory (J&K) stood at Rs 1.7 lakh crore in FY22 surging 34 per cent from Rs 1.2 lakh crore in FY21.

The revenue collection from Bengal reflects the sweetener announced by the Mamata Banerjee-government in the budget of 2021. Originally planned for four months, the sops have since been extended thrice. It is now in place till September 30, 2022.

In Bengal, the stamp duty stands at 4 per cent in the urban areas for properties up to Rs 1 crore and 3 per cent in the rural areas.

Above Rs 1 crore, the tax rate for urban areas is 5 per cent and 4 per cent for rural areas.

“In a real estate transaction, 2 per cent matters a lot. The encouragement by the government has worked,” Patodia added.

Motilal Oswal said the pan-India performance of the last fiscal may not be repeated this year.

“Considering the facts that interest rates have bottomed out, fiscal incentives have expired, inflation is high and the economic uncertainty is also steep, FY22 performance in the residential property market is unlikely to be repeated next year,” Nikhil Gupta, chief economist, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said.