June 06, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 01, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 5: The Ministry of Housing and Works has sought an additional allocation of Rs10 billion in the budget for launching different housing projects for low-income government employees and general public across the country.

The ministry plans to build about one million houses for government employees and poor people. Housing schemes will be initiated in separate phases. Some projects will be government-funded and others will be joint ventures of developers, bankers and the ministry.

Briefing newsmen on the projects at the inauguration of the Estate Office here on Thursday, federal minister for housing and works Haji Rehmatullah Kakar said that basic work for the projects had been completed.

He said that building one million houses was a massive task and separate requests had been made to four provinces to furnish their recommendations in this regard.

He said a number of meetings had taken place in this regard, cabinet briefed and the Capital Development Authority taken into confidence about the projects.

In reply to a question, Housing Secretary Samiul Haq Khilji said there was a shortage of about 7.6 million housing units in the country and a number of projects would be launched under the Prime Minister’s Housing Programme.

These houses, quarters or flats would be provided on easy instalments, he said.

Estate officer Sher Afzal said that hundreds of former government employees had been illegally occupying government houses.

These employees had either retired, gone abroad or died, but they or their families were not ready to vacate the government accommodation.

The estate officer said that more than 800 employees of the federal government, whose entitlement for government accommodation had expired long ago, were still occupying government accommodation in Sector G-6 in Islamabad despite rejection of their claims for ownership by the court.

He said a survey had been carried out and a plan prepared to end such illegal occupation. He said the former employees and their families had not been paying any rent, which was causing an annual loss of millions of rupees to the exchequer.

He said if any leniency was shown to the retired employees or their families, the number of such people would go on increasing, making it impossible for the estate office to get the possession of government houses or flats.

Replying to a question about ownership rights granted to such employees by former housing minister Safwanullah in Karachi, Mr Kakar said those ‘eligibility certificates’ did not entitle the occupants to sell the government property they were occupying.