Housing demand may rise

With an annual shortfall of 270,000 housing units, the demand of housing may now rise after the October 8 earthquake, which has left 3.3 million people homeless in Northern Areas and AJK. On an annual basis, Pakistan needs 570,000 units against the actual supply of 300,000.
There are over 19.3 million housing units in the country. About 24.8 million housing units for a population of 148.7 million people are required. Hence, a shortfall of 5.5 million houses is estimated.
These estimates clearly reflect the gradually increasing demand for housing units every year due to increasing population and urbanisation as well as to meet the urgent needs of three million earthquake-stricken people.
According to Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement (PSLM) survey-Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ), there are 87 percent households in Pakistan who owned a dwelling in 2004-05.
At the provincial level, households, which own dwelling stood at 87 percent in Punjab and Sindh, 83 percent in NWFP and 91 percent in Balochistan.
The percentage of houses owned in the rural areas (93 percent) was quite high than the urban areas (78 percent) in 2004-05.
The percentage of households, which used RCC/RBC for roof stood at 39 percent in 2004-05. Majority of households (50 percent) used wood/bamboo for construction of roof. In the rural areas only 15 percent households used RCC/RBC for construction of roof whereas in urban areas 51 percent roofs are made of RCC/RBC material.
At the provincial level Sindh (38 percent) province has the highest percentage of houses with this roof material and Balochistan has the lowest percentage with roofs of RCC/BCC (10 percent). The situation is similar in the urban areas.
However, in rural areas Punjab and NWFP have the highest proportion (17 percent) of houses with this roof material and again Balochistan has the lowest (3 percent) proportion of houses with roofs made of RCC/RBC.
According to the PSLM survey-CWIQ, there are 24 percent dwelling units with one room and 69 percent housing units with 2-4 rooms during 2004-05. In rural areas the proportion of dwelling with one room (27 percent) are greater than in urban areas (20 percent).
Electricity has become a necessity of life. In Pakistan in 2004-05 there are 84 percent households who use electricity for lighting. At the provincial level, NWFP province has the highest proportion of households (90 percent) and Balochistan has the lowest proportion of households (62 percent), which use electricity. In urban areas there are 96 percent households and in rural areas there are 74 percent households, which use electricity, while remaining households use gas/oil or candle for lighting.
According to the survey in both rural and urban areas half of the households perceived no change in their economic situation.
However, 27 percent of households in urban areas and 23 percent in rural areas reported an improvement in their economic situation compared to last year. Proportionately more households in Punjab and NWFP reported improvement in their well being than households in the other two provinces, Sindh and Balochistan.
One quarter of rural households reported worsening of their economic situation in the one-year period, suggesting they have not benefited from the high agriculture growth.