ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz on Tuesday said that the government’s plan to boost construction activity was moving ahead as over 100,000 housing units were being built in different projects.
Addressing a press conference to share details of the decisions taken in the weekly cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, he said that under a government plan, the people were getting loans from banks for the low-cost housing.
On the instructions of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), he said, the banks had come up with packages for building homes and had allocated five per cent or Rs378 billion of their loan portfolio for the purpose. The banks were giving loans on five to 7 per cent mark-up for the construction of five marla houses and the loan limit was set at Rs3.5 million, he added.
The parliament had also passed the foreclosure law to protect such banks loans, he further said.
The minister said that two important projects, including Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project and the Bundle Islands, were currently underway.
According to a briefing of the Housing Ministry, about 35,700 housing units were being built presently while over 21,000 would be constructed in another six projects.
Faraz said that the government had put in place a mechanism to make it easy for the builders of houses, plazas and shopping malls to get no-objection certificates and maps’ approval.
He said that the prime minister took strict notice and condemned in strong words the incident in which a squad of vehicles had broken the red traffic signal in Islamabad and four people were killed.
He also said that the PM instructed the federal and provincial governments to strictly discourage the use of security and protocol squads on roads which created a culture of fear and impunity. A mechanism was already in place under which committees recommended bulletproof cars and security staff for vulnerable citizens, he added.
The minister said that the problem of land grabbers was also discussed in the meeting and it was informed that operations were continuing against illegal occupiers of state land, including those who had encroached upon railways land.
Railways Minister Azam Swati was working on the issue of railways land and he was further instructed to get recovered the government assets, he added.
Land grabbing had weakened the rule of law and also created a sense of insecurity among the public, especially the overseas Pakistanis, he also said, adding it was the responsibility of the government to protect the state assets.
