ISLAMABAD: Minister for Housing and Works Chaudhry Tariq Bashir Cheema said that New Pakistan Housing Authority has formally launched pilot project of five million houses across the country and the project had no link with the previous government housing schemes.
Talking to a news channel, he said the mega project of housing have great attraction for foreign and local investors and hopefully many international housing construction companies would invest.
Tariq Cheema underlined the Prime Minister would monitor the mega project as initially it is being launching in seven districts of the country including Islamabad, Faisalabad, Sukkur, Dera Ismail Khan, Quetta, Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK.
A 17-member task force would finalize the recommendations within 90 days regarding construction of houses in different parts of the country, he added.
He said the housing project would have different categories of houses with different prices. Grade 1 to 16 employees would be eligible to apply.
There will be one window operation and Federal Government has asked the provincial governments to establish housing authorities at provincial level.
To a question, he said the government has launched a crackdown against land mafia across the country and further amendments were being made in law to crush these types of mafias from the country.
The minister said that unfortunately well educated and sober personalities had occupied on government houses adding that over 17,000 people were living in official residences as around 26,000 applications were still pending for accommodation. It was a serious step of the government as in the past many housing schemes had failed to deliver on time.
Prime Minister Imran Khan was working with full passion and wanted to deliver something for public so he would look after all the matters regarding the housing authority, he said and added that this project would benefit the low income class of the country.
He said the federal government had asked the provincial governments to submit details of free-land of the government in the different parts of the country.
The minister stated that due to this mega housing project, millions of jobs will be generated and hopefully unemployment would be reduced because over 40 industries had business links with that sector.
He said the government was also seeking a permanent solution of the slum areas.
APP