RAWALPINDI, Dec 3: Nearly two decades since its inception, the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) seems close to launching its maiden housing scheme, it has been learnt.

Sources told Dawn on Wednesday that the Punjab government had approved a summary sent by the RDA regarding a housing project for its employees and residents of the city.

“Over a dozen land owners have also expressed interest in offering their property to the authority for the proposed society,” the sources said.

The RDA will execute the project under a land sharing formula, thus giving away a certain number of developed plots in the housing society to the land owners.

“This would be the first government-sponsored housing project in Rawalpindi city, as in the past the RDA has miserably failed to come up with its own housing project,” the sources said.

The site for the housing project has not yet been chosen, however, it is expected to be somewhere along the Islamabad-Lahore Motorway (M-2).

RDA Director-General Makeen Shahbaz confirmed that a number of land owners had contacted his office and offered their land.

“The main obstacle in the implementation of the housing project was lack of interested land owners. Now we have land owners who are ready to offer us land under the land sharing formula,” Mr Shahbaz told Dawn.

He said the authority would soon enter into an agreement with the interested and suitable land owners, adding that it would immediately start work on the project in order to fulfil the dream of the salaried class.

The inability of the RDA to initiate its own housing project over the last 19 years has resulted in shortage of over 70,000 housing units, creating an acute demand for rented accommodation in the populous city.

Earlier, the RDA had proposed to launch a housing project at Loi Bhir, however, the project could not materialise due to various reasons, including legal challenges raised by from private housing societies. Eventually the then chief minister of Punjab, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, announced to develop a housing scheme for journalists at the site.

A source told Dawn the RDA was likely to enter into agreement with a land owner who had 2,000 kanals near the motorway.

“It would be a feasible deal as the site is a level piece of land suitable for a housing scheme,” the source said.