Govt set to remove NOC condition

Move aimed at expediting housing, construction activities in country

The government is all set to eliminate the condition of acquiring a no-objection certificate (NOC) for the construction of multi-storey and high-rise buildings near and around airports in five major cities of Pakistan in a bid to expedite housing and construction activities.

“Naphda (Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority) has sent a summary to the federal cabinet, recommending it to amend relevant laws to end the condition which requires developers to acquire NOC from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) for the construction of multi-storey buildings near and around airports,” Prime Minister’s Task force on Housing member Hasan Bakshi told The Express Tribune.

The five major cities included Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Multan, he said after attending an online meeting of Naphda, headed by its Chairman General (Retd) Anwar Ali Hyder, in Islamabad on Tuesday.

At present, builders are bound to acquire NOC for the construction of high-rise buildings within 15.24 km radius of an airport.

“The government has already withdrawn the condition of acquiring NOC for construction on land beyond the 15km area from the airports,” said Bakshi, who is also a former chairman of the Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan (ABAD).

“We are still following (CAA) rules of 1912 despite a huge improvement in aircraft and flying technologies,” he said. “The cabinet will take up the matter in its next meeting.”

He said that the government had completed mapping for new construction, meaning it had defined the maximum height for buildings to be constructed anywhere in the cities. The maximum height differs from place to place even within the same city.

Builders are bound to follow the mapping strictly for safe journey of aircraft all across Pakistan. “Now, the builders will no longer be required to acquire NOC, which will save time in construction.”

Naphda has sent the recommendation for reducing time and cost of constructing the projects. “It takes almost six months to acquire NOC from relevant authorities. In the meantime, the cost of project rises,” he said. “The recommendation is aimed at steering ease of doing business as the government has resolved to provide maximum relief to businesses.”

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan wanted to speed up the pace of work on housing and construction projects, especially the low-cost housing projects, to enable people to have their own homes.

During his election campaign in 2018, he had promised the nation that his government would set up five million low-cost housing units. Authorities estimate that there was a shortfall of around 11-12 million housing units in Pakistan as the country did not develop the required 700,000 units a year for different reasons for a long time.

Housing and construction projects hold the key to ramping up economic activities and creating thousands of jobs. Construction activities support around 40-70 allied industries including cement, steel, paint and woodwork, Bakshi said.

Earlier, PM Imran had significantly slashed the tax on construction of houses, especially the low-cost housing projects, and announced a subsidy worth Rs30 billion for houses to be owned by people belonging to the low and middle-income groups.

Besides, he has announced an amnesty scheme for the builders under which they will not be asked about the source of investment in projects to be initiated by December 2020. However, there is a condition that the structure of the projects should be ready by September 2022.

All the stakeholders including secretaries of different federal and provincial ministries and professionals from the private sector are members of Naphda. PM Imran created the authority earlier this year with the objective of facilitating the people to have their own homes.

During the Naphda meeting, the participants were informed that the government of Balochistan had reduced the tax on transfer of land to 2% with effect from October 27 compared to 6% earlier.

The government of Sindh had reduced the tax to 2% around three months ago, while governments of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa did so nearly six months ago, he said. The meeting was also informed that land approval authorities were bound to update their websites within 72 hours if they made any changes to their relevant rules and regulations.

“The decision will help the builders to acquire building plans and designs as per latest rules,” he said. “Earlier, the builders had to get their building designs approved again and again due to unavailability of updated rules on websites following changes to relevant laws.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2^nd, 2020.

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