- Housing Ministry official points out shortfall of approximately 10 million houses in the country
The list of federal employees, who are waiting for official accommodation, is extending gradually and the figure has reached 22,709 mainly caused by the ban on construction of new housing units since 1995.
Currently, the Estate Office has only 17,497 government-owned accommodations in the federal capital. “As many as 6,807 federal government employees have applied for the allotment of the government accommodation since June 2013,” according to an official of the Ministry of Housing and Works.
The accommodations were not sufficient to meet the requirements of the government employees in the federal capital, he said. Presently, “there is a shortfall of approximately 10 million houses in the country and the government is making concerted efforts to bridge the gap,” he said.
In 1995, the federal cabinet imposed a ban on new construction of the government accommodation, he said, adding that the matter of the construction of the new accommodation was taken up on public-private partnership. In this regard, he said a proposal to demolish the existing accommodation at F-6/4 and construction of 10 storey flats in their place, was submitted to the prime minister last year.
The Prime Minister’s Office had directed the authorities concerned to re-submit the summary through the Cabinet Division after consultation with all the stakeholders, the official said. Accordingly, the Capital Administration and Development Division and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) were requested to furnish their views, he said.
To a question, he said that the ministry would construct around 500,000 housing units for the low-income families throughout the country under the Apna Ghar scheme. Under the scheme, he said that the government would provide houses to homeless and shelterless families by constructing low-cost units on the state land in different localities.
“To ensure cost-effective access to credit for housing, the government will pick up a portion of the financing cost as subsidy.” In order to commence execution work for launching the housing project, he said that the Apna Ghar Limited Company has been registered with the Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan.
“All the initial work of the project has been completed and sufficient chunks of the state land have been identified for the launching of the project,” the official said.