The government is considering offering market-based house rents to bureaucrats from the next financial year in a bid to convert their residences, spread over 850 acres of land in the heart of the capital, into commercial areas.
The move could save billions of taxpayers’ rupees in the long run on account of repair, maintenance and construction of new houses, besides making better use of the prime land, which is mostly in posh sectors of Islamabad, said a senior government functionary. To chalk out a way forward, a meeting of the ministries concerned was held here on Thursday under the chair of Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Dr Nadeemul Haque.
The idea of the monetisation of housing facility has been floated by Dr Nadeem in the Framework of Economic Growth – a comprehensive document being touted as offering solutions to all problems in the country.
According to the framework, every grade 22 official is residing in lavishly built house that costs the exchequer Rs200,000 per month. While a grade 21 official’s monthly housing cost has been assessed at Rs150,000 and Rs 80,000 for a grade 20 officer.
Earlier, the government had implemented a cars’ monetisation policy, which although has not yet fully been adopted by all federal government ministries and departments, the initial results seem encouraging.
The finance ministry has cut its fuel expenses by half and repair and maintenance expenses by two-thirds, according to the official spokesman of the ministry.
An official who attended the meeting said that the proposal under consideration was to get official residences vacated and convert them into skyscrapers, commercial plazas, and office complexes.
He added that in return the bureaucrats would be offered market-based house rents.
The government is considering to initially offer the scheme to grade 20 to 22 officers. The official said at present only 8% of federal employees have official residences, while the rest of them hire houses on their own. The government has fixed rent ceilings against every grade but the market rates are constantly changing, putting extra burden on the pockets of the employees.
Most federal government employees keep struggling for getting allotted official residences and often offer bribes to officials of the Estate Office of the Ministry of Housing and Works, admitted an official of the ministry.
The sources quoted Housing Secretary Kamran Lashari as saying that if the government could make better use of this prime land, it could retire significant amount of national debt. The sources said that the Capital Development Authority gave a presentation on housing units being used by bureaucrats, in which it said that the official housing units are spread over 850 acres land. According to a property dealer, the cost of a housing unit in the posh sectors is somewhere between Rs40 and Rs50 million.
The meeting also asked the CDA to come up with proposals on how to convert residential lands into commercial ones.
Sources said that the finance ministry proposed in the meeting to double the house rent ceilings, but the proposal was turned down by the deputy chairman. The meeting asked the finance ministry to work out the impact of market-based house rent ceilings on the budget.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 16th, 2012.
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how on earth an officer of g-22 will get a lavish house on just a meagre amount of house rent. Sufficient and attaractive house rent allowance has to be offered my dear friend.
it will be a wise decision if taken and implemented. it will save many of millions of national exchequer.