President for out of box financial solutions to meet housing needs
Pakistan
President for out of box financial solutions to meet housing needs
President Asif Ali Zardari called for an out of the box and innovative solution to enable Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) in implementing the Prime Ministers Housing Programme. Chairing a briefing to meet the growing housing needs for government officials, public and specially the poor under the PMs housing programme, the President said housing was a basic human need and disregard of this important sector has resulted in social unrest and discontent. Briefing the media about the meeting Spokesperson to the President former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the President asked for focusing on providing housing units to the poor and the needy in the first place. He recalled that the Prime Minister announced in the parliament last year a programme for construction of one million housing facilities in the country. He said a plan should also be devised to provide affordable housing for the middle and lower middle class through mortgage, financing or easy installment financial plans and also to government employees on the eve of their retirement. He said that the house building activity would revitalize the economic activities as dozens of downstream industries were directly linked with the housing development. The President said the adoption of public private model in the housing sector could prove most beneficial in the development of this sector. The meeting was informed that in the short term 1000 housing units were being built in each provincial capital and in Islamabad. While in the long term 440,000 units in the Punjab, 300,000 in Sindh, 150,000 in Frontier, 40,000 in Balochistan, 40,000 in AJK/Northern Areas and 25,000 units would be built in Islamabad, Farhatullah Babar said. He said state land in the federal and provincial capitals had been identified and expressions of interest (EOI) from private land developers obtained and about 30,000 acres of land identified for housing development. In addition 140 acres of land at Kuri Road in Islamabad had also been earmarked by the CDA. The President said that land acquisition and development by the state was central to the issue of housing development for the government servants, the poor and the needy and called for devising a viable plan in this regard. He said that another meeting on the subject be convened after a suitable interval to examine proposed plans for land acquisition and development by the state and the mechanism for financing the housing projects.
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