KP to build 750,000 houses for the poor

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has planned to construct around 750,000 houses in different districts of the province for poor people and low paid income groups in next five years in line with policy of Prime Minister Imran Khan of constructing five million houses in the country.

“We are ready for implementation of prime minister’s vision in the targeted period, which is subjected to provision of timely funds for construction of these houses. We have chalked out a comprehensive and inclusive mechanism to achieve this gigantic task,” said Muhammad Yaqoob Khan, Additional Director Planning, Provincial Housing Authority (PHA).

With the construction of 750,000 houses, he said, the demands of affordable households would considerably decrease.

The housing department would launch two mega housing projects namely ‘Peshawar Model Town (PMT)’ in Peshawar and ‘CPEC City’ near Swabi on Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway where majority of the houses would be constructed in line with PM’’s policy.

“PMT will be constructed over an area of 107,000 kanals of land where around 100,000 new houses besides commercial and other services buildings would be built,” he said, adding that PC-I, feasibility studies and detailed design of this mega project had been completed.

The payment to landowners had already started after imposition of Section-IV for acquiring of land, he said, adding that Rs35 billion would be spent on purchase of land for PMT.

The CPEC City near Swabi is another mega housing project of the KP government that would be established at 80,000 kanals of land with an estimated cost of around 4.4 billion dollars as the process of acquiring of land has been expedited.

The official said that around Rs200 billion would be spent on development of infrastructure of CPEC City.

In addition to construction of around 62,000 residential houses, education and commercial zones, public buildings, apartments, golf course, theme park and sports facilities would also be constructed in CPEC City.