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KARACHI: Karachi needs 126,000 housing units every year due to five per cent growth in population influx from other provinces.
This was stated by Chairman, Association of Builders and Developers (Sindh Balochistan Zone) Saleem Kassim Patel at a press conference. He lamented that the Sindh government did not provide any special incentive to overcome the housing backlog.
He said the baseline population of Karachi is estimated at 18 million with an annual growth rate of 4.7 per cent. A majority of the people, he said, belong to middle income groups.
He said not only in Karachi, the housing shortage is posing an alarming situation in entire country.The house occupancy in Pakistan is six to seven persons as against three to four internationally.
He urged the provincial government to support the affordable housing by providing state land and housing finance at concessional rates.
This would help bridge the gap of backlog and overcome shortage in housing. The housing finance is the life-line for growth of construction industry, but the HBFC is slowly disbursing loans.
Due to this situation, many projects have been put on hold as they could not get adequate financial assistance.
Salim said Sui Southern Gas Company has announced freeze on gas connections for high-rise buildings. This restriction has affected development of construction industry as without this facility, the construction companies would not be able to give possession of housing units to allottees.
He urged the Sindh government to abolish sales tax on services which was imposed on builders and developers in the provincial budget for 2011-2012 as builders and developers are not service providers and have wrongly been included in this category.
Additionally, builders and developers already pay taxes which add up to seven per cent. These taxes include stamp duty, Registration Fee, CVT etc. Any addition to these dues would make properties expensive and out of reach of the common man.
He said stamp duties and registration fee be adequately reduced to an aggregate one per cent as construction industry is already paying taxes of more than seven per cent.
All new constructions on plots up to 150 sq yards and flats and apartments having an area of 1000 sq. ft. be exempted from taxes for a period of five years, he said.
Abad chairman Mohsin Sheikhani and vice chairman Arif Siddiq also spoke.
