Ministry seeks lower home loan rates

India's urban development ministry has called for additional government measures, including cuts in home loan rates, to revive the country's crumbling real estate sector.

The government is scheduled to unveil a second stimulus package on Friday.

Trade Minister Kamal Nath had last month said the government was looking at more steps to boost liquidity, and mulling steps to help exporters and the real estate and infrastructure sectors as part of the fresh package.

In a letter to the prime minister, S. Jaipal Reddy, minister for urban development, said interest rates for home loans of up to 500,000 rupees should be kept at 6.5 percent, while loans between 500,000 rupees and 3 million rupees should be levied interest of 7.5 percent annually.

Domestic demand for real estate has fallen sharply amid high lending rates and tight liquidity.

In December, an industry lobby had said transactions had fallen 80 percent, pulling down prices, and that projects had failed to take off with banks not willing to lend to the sector.

Reddy also said that the ceiling for income tax rebates on interest paid on home loans be raised to 300,000 rupees from 150,000 rupees currently.

"Housing projects should be treated at par with the infrastructure sector for all purposes including bank funding," he said in the letter, a copy of which was made available to Reuters.

But Reddy also said the industry should match government measures by lowering house prices and investing more in affordable housing. - Reuters

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SEBI finds no manipulation in ICICI stock prices.

Do you remember ICICI banks gtear fall.

It had many huge intraday falls , the one of 25% , who can afford to forget it.

ICICI was angry and approached SEBI for investigation.

The bank had in September sought an investigation by SEBI into its share price movement, alleging that rumours were being spread about the bank to deliberately bring down its stock price. The ICICI scrip had started to tank on news of its exposure to Lehman bonds, and although the bank’s CEO had announced that its fundamentals were sound, the fall was not arrested.

SEBI analysed the trading pattern of the shares of ICICI Bank for the period September 8 to October 10, 2008 when the scrip fell 49.52 per cent, from Rs 720 to Rs 363.65.

“SEBI did not find evidence of manipulative trading in the ICICI Bank shares during the period referred,” said the release.

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