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Over 70,000 housing projects worth Rs 1.4 trillion approved: PM Imran Khan

Over 70,000 housing projects worth Rs 1.4 trillion approved: PM Imran Khan
February 10, 2022 Web Desk

ISLAMABAD (92 News) – Prime Minister Imran Khan chaired a meeting of NCC on Housing, Construction and Development on Thursday.

Addressing the meeting, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that over 70,000 housing projects worth Rs 1.4 trillion have been approved. "It will cause an effect of Rs 7.3 trillion on the construction industry besides creating 1.2 million jobs. Out of 80,000, 35,420 applications worth Rs 130 billion have been approved," he added.

The prime minister said that the biggest challenge being faced by his government is to change the mentality of the elite in the financial institutions. "Another challenge is to facilitate the people in getting loans. The middle class and low-income people would benefit from the subsidized loans most of all," he maintained.

He directed to complete the projects in the defined timelines and emphasized to take steps to improve and ease the process for low cost housing projects.

The meeting was briefed that for the very first time in the history of Pakistan a sustainable ecosystem for low-cost housing has been developed and implemented which has enabled the sector to achieve exponential growth.

The Foreclosure Law has been implemented in letter and spirit and long term loans (up to 20 years) with subsidized markup (as low as only 2%) are being given. In addition to that a cost subsidy of Rs 300,000 for low income housing schemes and 90% tax waiver has resulted in encouraging the private sector, which is actively participating in the construction of housing units under the schemes. The projects include urban, peri-urban, urban regeneration, government funded and private sector projects.

The meeting was also told that a total of 2507 projects worth Rs 627 billion have been registered on the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Portal under Fixed Tax Regime which have an impact of Rs 3.135 trillion on the economy.

The meeting was attended by federal ministers Shaukat Tarin, Fawad Chauhdary, Minister for state Farrukh Habib, SAPM Dr Shehbaz Gill, Governor State Bank, Chairman NAPHDA, Lt. Gen Anwar Ali Haider (Retd), CEO RUDA Imran Amin, Chief Secretaries of Punjab and Balochistan and concerned senior officials.