Work on housing scheme soon: Kakar

[LRE]

Work on housing scheme soon: Kakar



Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Islamabad

Federal Minister for Housing and Works Rehmatullah Kakar Monday said the ministry is finalising modalities to start work on a gigantic project of one million housing units throughout the country.

Talking to APP, he said the Government has allocated Rupees two billion revolving fund in the federal budget 2008-09 to start work on this much awaited and important sector, which Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani had announced in his maiden speech in the National Assembly.

He said a series of meetings were going on with the stakeholders, local and foreign companies, showing interest, to finalise modalities for the project of national importance.

He said that officials of the ministry has been directed to identify government land throughout the country so that construction work on the project could be started.

Kakar said that under the plan one million low cost houses would be constructed for low-income groups of the society throughout the country to overcome acute shortage of housing units. The scheme also includes low-scale federal government employees.

Foreign companies are showing keen interest to invest in housing sector in Pakistan, he said, adding that talks with representatives of Spain, China, UAE and England based firms have been held. The minister said that Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) has recently been tasked to undertake housing schemes for the officers of Federally Constituted Occupation Groups and for the low-paid employees of the federal government.

The federal government employees in the country in general and in the federal capital in particular are facing a lot of problems due to shortage of government houses and there is dire need to launch mega-housing schemes for them on war footing, he said.

These housing unites would be constructed for officials/officers in order of preference of three cities out of four provincial capitals and federal capital, he added.The minister said a chain of about 37,000 houses for the low-paid FG employees on ownership basis would be built in the federal capital. Rehmatullah Kakar said that a similar project is being initiated in Punjab metropolitan for the FG employees from grade-1 to 16 on ownership basis while such projects would also be initiated in all the four provincial headquarters to meet shortage of housing units for federal government employees.

The FG employees would get loans from the House Building Finance Corporation, he added. The minister added that Ministry of Housing and Works is working on war footing to materialise the scheme to overcome shortage of houses in the country.

http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=120277