NEW DELHI: At least a fourth of office space lies vacant across the country, with supply exceeding demand, especially, in the IT sector over the past two years. Telltale signs of this trend are evident along the Sohna Road in Gurgaon, Whitefield in Bangalore and the Old Mahabalipuram Road in Chennai, among other areas lined with partially-occupied offices.These IT buildings were built under the centre's Software Technology Parks of India STPI ) scheme that ended on March 31, 2011. Under the scheme, developers could build over 50% of extra space and occupiers would get tax benefits through section 10A and 10B of the Income Tax Act.Since these buildings can only be leased to IT clients, it is getting hard for developers to lease them out without any tax benefits, said Sanjay Dutt, chief executive officer, business at property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle India.According to JLL, 25-30% office buildings across the country are vacant. These include corporate office buildings, IT buildings and Special Economic Zones . A majority of the vacancy is in IT buildings since many companies have moved to SEZs that still offer tax benefits to occupiers."A majority of stock that came into the market in 2010 and 2011 has not seen good levels of take up, which is responsible for the high vacancy today," said Vivek Dahiya, chief executive officer of GenReal Property Advisers, a property consulting firm. About 13 million sq ft of IT space was added in Mumbai, National Capital Region , Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad in 2011.In certain pockets of Gurgaon, Noida, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Bangalore, vacancy level in IT buildings is much higher at over 40%, experts said.Dahiya said a number of developers who finished construction of IT buildings in 2011 were unable to lower rentals to attract tenants because of a rise in input costs as well as cost of capital over the past one year.While the cost of credit has risen from 12% to 15-16%, the cost of labour has jumped 40-60% within a year and prices of steel and cement have risen by about 50% in the past three to six months.