Almost any economy where buying is expensive, renting works out cheaper.

From the perspective of owning a property. You have far higher costs. That starts with firstly buying land and developing it. Money doesn't grow on trees, so you need take out loan, and pay inflation standard interests to do that. This is while you weather lay off risks, and other deprecation costs. At this point in time, in any major city in India, you need 2+ crores to build a decent rental property.

Then come maintenance costs, long term costs of holding the property(Property taxes), holding the risks of encroachment etc.

Secondly your point on taxes on rent is not entirely right. You will be surprised how easy it is to attract audit and raids. It happens all the time.

Lastly. In case of renting you have no loan risk, you have no encroachment risk, you have mobility advantage, you can look for newly developed properties and stay there. You can shift every time you find amenities of a different property to be better. All of this in a pay-as-you-go model.