Hiranandani says affordable housing is unviable, blames government charges

Niranjan Hiranandani, of the Hiranandani Group, has said affordable housing in India has become economically unviable. Reports of his remarks, made at News18's Rising Bharat Summit in Mumbai, were published on 1 November 2026. He said the industry's failure to deliver affordable homes is becoming a serious economic and social challenge, and that the crisis could deepen over the next few years unless urgent policy steps are introduced.

Asked why reputed developers are increasingly moving away from homes priced below ₹50 lakh, he said affordable housing “has been destroyed. It doesn't exist.” His main argument was that government-imposed charges are a major reason property prices are rising, leaving developers little room to make homes cheaper.

Government charges as the main cost

He gave a Mumbai illustration. “For instance, when I sell a house for 40,000 rupees a square foot in Mumbai, 20,000 goes to government first,” he said. These are his own figures and have not been checked against official data. He said the government needs the money to fund metro, roads and other works, and that charges “are not going to reduce”. He also said stamp duty and ready reckoner rates were unlikely to be lowered.

For buyers, the main levies in Mumbai are set out in the state's rules. As of 11 March 2026, stamp duty is 6% for male buyers and 5% for female buyers, and both rates include a mandatory 1% metro cess that the Maharashtra government levies to fund metro rail infrastructure. Registration charges are 1% of property value, capped at ₹30,000 for properties valued above ₹30 lakh. Maharashtra's Inspector General of Registration has confirmed that ready reckoner rates for 2026-27 will stay at the levels set a year earlier. The prior year's Mumbai ready reckoner rise was about 3.39%.

He said land costs, regulatory charges and inflation could make housing even less affordable. He linked inflation to US President Donald Trump and said the combined effect “is going to make it even more unaffordable.” These remarks reflect his own reading of the market. No independent analysis of them was part of the reporting.

What he has said before, and what the figures show

His comments on the segment have shifted over the year, and the figures differ by date. On 13 February 2026, at the National Urban & Real Estate Development Conclave, he said the biggest problem in housing is the affordable segment and called on central and state governments to offer relief through lower charges, stamp duty cuts or tax incentives. In the same month he said the Maharashtra government had cut stamp duty by 50% during COVID and waived other charges, and he put the fall in affordable housing at 15% to 20%.

On 17 May 2026, in a CNBC-TV18 interview, he said he had “never seen in my 45 years plus of business the downfall of affordable housing to the extent to which it has taken place in the last 20 months.” On 7 June 2026, he said affordable housing had “declined by 20% over the last 24 months.” He also said in June 2026 that the slowdown was largely concentrated in the affordable segment, with other segments not seeing such declines. In May he suggested rental housing could become a long-term answer, similar to the commercial real estate model.

The Hiranandani Group describes itself as a premium developer with more than 40 years in the business. Its flagship Mumbai-area townships are Hiranandani Gardens in Powai and Hiranandani Estate in Thane. Its Mumbai redevelopment activity includes two societies in Bandra and Versova, signed in 2025, covering about 2,00,000 sq ft of saleable area. In Pune, it has a 50:50 joint venture with Krisala Developers for a 105-acre township in North Hinjewadi, which the companies put at ₹2,000 crore of land investment and ₹7,000 crore of revenue potential. No start date has been given for that project.

What to watch

Any change to the costs he described would need action by the state government, because stamp duty and ready reckoner rates are set in Maharashtra. For now, the ready reckoner rates are frozen for 2026-27. Buyers and investors in the affordable segment will be watching whether the government responds to the calls for relief that he and others have made, and whether the slowdown he describes shows up in the registration figures in the months ahead.