Written by Ai Powered PMC Akbar Jiwani
Special Correspondent : Realestate
for Realnewsofindia.com
ndustry leader says banks, corporates and charitable trusts should be enabled to build rental homes for working professionals as low-cost ownership housing becomes harder to deliver
Mumbai, 4 November 2026 – With affordable homes fast slipping out of reach in India’s big cities, real estate developer Niranjan Hiranandani has urged the government to incentivise rental housing for the next 10 years, and to let companies, banks, financial institutions and charitable trusts build accommodation for working professionals.
Speaking at News18’s Rising Bharat Summit 2026, as reported by Business Today on 2 November, Hiranandani said traditional affordable housing has become difficult to deliver because of high land prices, rising construction costs and government charges.
Supply below Rs 50 lakh shrinking
He pointed to the Economic Survey 2025-26, which reported that the share of homes priced below Rs 50 lakh in new supply across the eight largest cities fell from 52.4% in 2018 to just 17% in 2025.
The rental yield problem
According to Hiranandani, low returns of about 2-3% on residential rental property discourage developers and institutional investors. “Nobody wants to invest in residential because the returns are 2 and 3%,” he said, arguing that tax concessions could change the economics. He also claimed that half of people in the United States live in rental housing, a figure not independently verified in the report.
Extend industrial worker housing benefit
India already allows qualifying spending on industrial worker housing to be written off over 10 years, provided the housing is used for that purpose. “We have already incentivised industrial housing two years ago,” Hiranandani noted. He wants the same benefit extended to service-sector employers such as banks, financial institutions and large corporates, naming Reliance and HDFC as examples. “So you could provide service housing. It’ll incentivize companies to do it,” he said.
He linked the proposal to Mumbai’s commuting burden, noting that employees travel long distances from suburbs such as Virar and Vasai to offices in South Mumbai.
Role for trusts and CSR funds
Hiranandani also called for charitable trusts, including the Tata trusts, and CSR funds to be permitted to build rental housing, recalling that pre-independence trusts built chawls for working-class families in Mumbai. “We need to do something very quickly,” he said.
What it means
The proposal adds to the growing debate on how to expand housing supply for urban workers beyond ownership schemes. Any move would need policy and tax decisions by the government; no such announcement has been made yet.
