Pakistan PM kicks off thousand-home housing project in Punjab province

Prime Minister Imran Khan prays after inaugurating Naya Pakistan Housing Program at Renala Khurd on 4 May, 2019. (PID)

• Project is part of ‘Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme’ that aims to build five million houses for the poor in five years
• Khan says government wants to introduce mortgage system to make housing accessible to the poor

RENALA KHURD/OKARA: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan kicked off a thousand-home housing project in Renala Khurd, a few kilometers from Okara, in Pakistan’s largest province of Punjab on Saturday, part of his flagship ‘Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme’ (NPHS) which aims to construct five million affordable houses for the poor in the next five years.
NPHS was announced by Khan soon after he assumed office last year and has already been launched in the federal capital Islamabad, and in the cities of Quetta and Gwadar in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
“The private sector will build these homes and the government will just facilitate them,” Khan said at the launch ceremony, adding that the government wanted to introduce a mortgage system with the central bank to make housing accessible to the poor.
Khan also said his low-budget housing scheme had attracted international investors in the construction sector.
Under the scheme, aspiring homeowners will be required to deposit 20 percent of the unit price of the home and obtain financing approval for the remaining 80 percent from commercial banks. The objective is to bring monthly installments as close as possible to current rates of renting in these areas, with the price of land eventually recovered from the end consumer over a payback period of twenty years.