NAREDCO Appeals to Increase Deduction on Housing Loan Interest Payment

Niranjan Hiranandani, chairman of NAREDCO, stated that more has to be done to improve the flow of money into the affordable housing market.

The National Real Estate Development Council pushed on Monday to give the housing sector infrastructure status in the upcoming Budget and to increase the deduction for housing loan interest payments from Rs. 2 lakhs to Rs. 5 lakhs.

In addition to Hiranandani, other attendees included Managing Director S Paramassivan of Afcons Infrastructure Limited, Chairman of the ReNew Group Sumant Sinha, and Chairman of the GMR Group Business BVN Rao.

After meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for the customary pre-budget meeting, Niranjan Hiranandani, Chairman of the National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO), told reporters that more work needs to be done to improve the flow of funding to the affordable housing sector.

"There was also a talk relating to housing to be considered as infrastructure status, how the funding could be made available so that more affordable housing and those things can also come up," according to him.

In his more than 40-year career, Hiranandani noted that this is the first year that the growth of affordable housing is negative.

"So, I think the focus on the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana scheme to incentivise affordable housing was a major thing," he stated.

Hiranandani acknowledged that not everyone owns a home, but added that the finance minister had provided an incentive for industrial workers to rent housing in the previous budget.