Islamabad: Chinese firm offered to build 5,000 flats

[Naveed Yaseen]

Muhammad Anis
The Ministry of Housing and Works has offered a Chinese construction firm to raise over 5,000 residential flats in Islamabad and provincial capitals to meet the housing shortage for federal government employees.

“A Chinese firm has shown interest to invest in the housing sector and we have offered them to construct 5,000 to 8,000 flats for private sector in Islamabad and four provincial capital,” Federal Secretary Housing and Works Ahmad Baksh Lehri told ‘The News’. The officials said private people would own the flats, but the federal government employees could hire these accommodations according to their ceilings.

The official said it was not possible for the ministry to allot government residences to all government employees. There are over 17,500 government accommodations against employees’ strength of over 400,000.

Lehri said during recent meetings of the parliament’s standing committee, the ministry had suggested that the ceiling of federal government employees should be raised so that they could easily hire a private accommodation in Islamabad and or other cities wherever they are posted.

However, he said immediately, the construction of new government residences were not under consideration due to non-availability of land and financial constraints.

The housing secretary, who enjoys rich experience in housing sector as director general Gawadar Development Authority (GDA), said another solution to meet housing shortage could be low-cost housing schemes saying the same experience had been very successful in Gawadar.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=204544