Govt to encourage high-rises to meet growing housing demand: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan announced on Thursday the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Inaf (PTI) government has decided to encourage the construction of high-rise buildings to meet growing housing demand in Pakistan.

“There is a need of ten million houses in Pakistan at present,” the prime minister said while speaking at an International Housing Conference in Islamabad. He announced to launch what he said his government’s ambitious housing project next month to provide five million houses to the low income strata of society.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Pakistan and the World Bank for cooperation in the housing sector at the event.

The prime minister further said no one had ever taken such a decision to undertake the housing project on a large scale in the country. He said the poor will largely benefit from the housing scheme.

He said this housing scheme will be executed with the help of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the private sector. 40 other industries linked with the housing sector would also benefit, he added.

Noting that constructing five million houses is a cumbersome task, PM Khan said once the project will get underway, the number of houses to be constructed will see an increase every year.

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He lamented that until now only elite had benefited from the creation of Pakistan, adding everything seemed to be for a small group of influential people.

The prime minister said state land worth Rs500 billion was cleared of encroachments in the federal capital alone and announced that the poor won’t be evicted from the state land.