Punjab to launch $1b housing project

Construction activity will help mitigate impact of virus

LAHORE:

As Covid-19 has started abating, the Punjab government has decided to launch a mega project of building 35,000 apartments in the metropolis to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the provincial economy.

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar made the announcement in a tweet on Monday. The chief minister highlighted that the government was about to launch an over $1 billion mega housing apartments project for the salaried class in the provincial capital under the prime minister’s Naya Pakistan Housing Programme (NPHP).

He pointed out that owing to coronavirus pandemic, economic activities were badly affected. The government has decided to boost housing and construction sectors to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) will soon initiate the housing project, which will boost the construction sector and other allied industries.

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“The government has already announced a historic relief package for the construction sector to give a boost to economic activities and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs,” Buzdar maintained.

The CM said that work was underway in Attock, Bhakkar, Okara, Kasur, Chiniot, Lodhran and Bahawalnagar under the NPHP. Now the government has decided to lay the foundation stone of mega projects under the NPHP, he tweeted.

The latest information posted on the Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency (PHTPA) website highlighted that the government has already completed balloting process in Khushab, Layyah, Bhakkar, Chishtian, Renala Khurd and Lodhran. It shows construction has been initiated in various districts.

In the first phase, three-marla and five-marla houses will be provided to the low and middle income households in Lodhran, Chishtian and Renala Khurd. The successful applicants from Bhakkar, Layyah and Quaidabad will get their houses in the second phase.

The governing body of the LDA has already accorded formal approval for construction of 35,000 apartments for the government employees. The authority has named the apartments as LDA City Naya Pakistan Apartments.

Five categories of flats with different covered areas and heights will be constructed under the project.

The authority has also allowed modification in the LDA City scheme plan for this purpose where the apartments will be constructed on more than 8,000 kanals of land situated in village Halloki. The city builder has also approved the layout plan of the area besides design of the residential units.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had unveiled the NPHP in October 2019. In the first phase, the government decided to start the NPHP in seven districts, including Sukkur, Quetta, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad, Swat, Islamabad and Faisalabad, with an aim to construct a total five million houses for the low-income strata of the society during next five years.

Available estimates suggested that the country was facing a shortage of over 10 million housing units, with about one-third in the urban areas. Provincial data showed that housing shortage in Punjab was estimated to be around 5.5 million units, followed by Sindh (3.1 million), Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (1.3 million) and Balochistan (500,000).

The backlog is estimated to rise by 300,000-350,000 units a year, or half of the new demand being created every year.

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Investors from China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Canada have already expressed their interest in the NPHP.

Various foreign delegations called on Punjab Housing Minister Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed and senior leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to express their interest in the scheme during recent months and the government had announced maximum facilitation to foreign and local investors for its flagship project.

Foreign companies had also given presentations to the government about their low-cost construction technologies and techniques

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2020.