ISLAMABAD: Commercial and micro finance banks disbursed Rs38 billion loans among 12,000 eligible applicants for construction of houses with mark up as low as two percent. Asim Shaukat Ali, spokesman Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority (NAPHDA) revealed this in a media talk held on Wednesday.

He said total 70,000 applications came for verification process and eligible candidates were disbursed Rs38 billion and rest Rs30 billion would also be available out for house loans.

Responding to a question regarding refund of Rs250 fee per application charged by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) in October 2018 for applying for a house under the first phase of the Naya Pakistan Housing Programme (NPHP) initiated by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government, the spokesman said that it was processing fee of the NADRA.

He further said that 20,000 houses were constructed under the NAPHDA and target of 60,000 more houses would be constructed.

He said that federal government is providing subsidy of Rs35 billion to keep the mark up at lower level in addition to the subsidy given to private developer.

The private developers would construct 300,000 low cost and affordable houses.

He said that modalities and transparent mechanism was evolved to disburse loan to zero and first tier of people on two to three percent mark-up.

The master plans including the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) would be revised to accommodate the federal government housing schemes in various cities across the country, he added.

Apart from engaging provincial board of revenue, the federal government also engaged private developers with 100 kanal land holding with clear land title and approachable land were also incentivised to build low-cost housing, he added.

He said 22 districts were identified in the Punjab, the KP, Balochistan, and Jammu Kashmir for the construction of low-cost housing on state-owned land.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022