Not for the poor

A large part of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s strategy to tackle the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic was to provide incentives to the construction industry for it to restart, create jobs and generate activity for ancillary businesses to take advantage of as well. This package includes a Rs30 billion subsidy – meaning each of the first 100,000 houses that will be built under the Naya Pakistan Housing Project (NPHP), the PTI government’s flagship affordable housing project, Rs0.3 million of the cost will be picked up by the state.

The proposed sizes of the houses that will be built under the NPHP are 5 to 10 marla, which according to even the most conservative of estimates would cost anywhere between Rs5 and TRs6 million. While the scheme is welcome, its advertised purpose, to provide low-cost housing to the masses, is perhaps a bit misleading. It is aimed at property developers who have the appetite to take a stab at a housing society venture at a government-discounted cost, the idea being that if enough investors bite. It’s just not for the common man as is being portrayed.

Qazi Jamshed Alam Siddiqui

Lahore