Federal Govt to Launch Affordable Housing Scheme for Low-income Groups

Islamabad: The secretary Ministry of Housing and Works Iftikhar Ali Shallwani held a meeting with the members of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) and said that the federal government is working on a project to launch an affordable housing scheme for the low-income groups. He said that the scheme would be launched on a public-private partnership basis besides the involvement of some other stakeholders. He said that the govt wants to ensure affordable housing for the masses around the country. He also discussed with the members of the ICCI the upcoming First International Housing Exhibition scheduled to be held from Dec 8 to 11 in the Jinnah Convention Centre Islamabad.

The participant of the meeting expressed satisfaction that the expo would be very beneficial for the promotion of the housing industry and allied companies in the international market. It was also informed that the housing exhibition would also be actively participated by Chinese Companies who would demonstrate their low-cost housing innovations. It was also noticed that Pakistan is currently facing a serious shortage of housing units in the country. Around 1 million houses per year are required to meet the needs of the ever-increasing population.

It is relevant to mention here that successive governments have developed a number of housing schemes to provide the masses with the basic requirements for housing. The previous government under the visionary leadership of the then PM Imran Khan established a spate housing authority named “Naya Pakistan Housing Authority”. Under the scheme, the government decided to provide low-cost housing units to millions of people.

In this connection, the commercial banks received applications worth 226 billion out of which cases of around 90 billion were approved and around 24 billion disbursed to the masses. Around 20000 housing units were delivered to the low-income group. As per the low-cost housing scheme, the mark-up subsidy scheme of the government offered loans to the low-income group for twenty years on only 2 percent service charges, 5 percent markup to the middle-income group for 5- Marla house, and 7 percent for the 10- Marla house.