Rs300,000 subsidy for up to 100,000 housing units: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Friday that the federal government will give a subsidy of Rs300,000 for up to 1000,000 housing units.

Speaking during his visit to the Naya Pakistan Housing Authority’s project Farash Town Apartments in Islamabad, Imran said funds to the tune of Rs35 billion have been earmarked for a subsidy on the construction of low-cost housing units.

He said 100,000 apartments are under construction at present and that the construction The premier said the banks have applications in process amounting to around Rs226 billion, while the cases for Rs90 billion have been approved, while Rs24 billion has been disbursed.

He said currently 100,000 houses were under construction. He said it took almost two years to put in place a structure that can take up this difficult task. However, now the Naya Pakistan Authority was fully functional to plan and execute the objective of construction of low-cost houses.

Imran visited the site of 4,400 underconstruction houses and said it was for the first time that the people who could never afford, could now own a house of their own.

“No government in the past cared for the low-income segment of the society, who had no shelter,” he said ater visiting the construction site at Farash Town in the suburbs of Islamabad.

Around 4,400 apartments are being constructed in collaboration with CDA, Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority and FWO at a very fast pace.

The premier was given a detailed briefing and informed that the pace of the project was according to the schedule. He had performed ground-breaking of the project in April this year.

The apartments were being constructed on 70 kanals of land and out of these 2,000 houses have been reserved for low-income groups registered under the Naya Pakistan Housing, 400 were for the slum dwellers and 2,000 for middle income and salaried class people. The entire project would cost Rs15.3 billion.

Imran said 52,500 housing units were under construction, out of which 20,000 have already been delivered through Akhuwat and Workers Welfare Fund. He said 104 projects comprising 307,000 housing units were under evaluation and processing whereas work on 45,133 housing units had either started or was in the final stages of planning.

In his address, Imran regreted that the previous governments did not pay heed to the basic needs of people including affordable housing. He said the banks were asked to provide mortgages to the people to help them construct a house of their choice.