Satellite towns: government urged to allot land to developers, builders on cheap rates

Chairman of Housing and Construction sub-committee of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) Munir Sultan has urged the government to allot land at the rate on which it is providing land to other development agencies for constructing satellite towns.
Presiding over a meeting of the committee, he disclosed that the government allotted land to DHA, CDA, HDA, LDA and other development agencies on concessional rates, and demanded that the reputed builders should also be allotted land on the same patron for development of satellite towns. He also suggested that a price control committee should be established at the government level for controlling the price of the under-construction projects.
Munir Sultan also urged the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) to withdraw demolition notices issued to house and shop owners of Shahrah-e-Liaquat. He observed that a committee, comprising representatives of KCCI and KBCA, was also working to resolve the issue amicably.
He pointed out that in the 2007-08 budget, the government announced to construct 2.5 lakh houses in five years or 50,000 house every year with the cooperation of House Building Finance Corporation (HBFC), and added that it would not sufficient to clear the housing units backlog as the country needed around seven million housing units. He said that annual requirement of housing units was no less than 700,000 units, whereas annual construction of houses was only 3.70 lakh units.
Presenting a formula to clear the housing backlog, he proposed that at least 100,000 additional houses should be constructed in the first year and this number should be double of the figure of the previous year. He said this process would take 10 years to clear the housing units backlog.
Speaking on the occasion, KCCI Senior Vice-President Abdullah Zaki, referring to the notices issued to shopkeepers of Shahrah-e-Liaquat, said these shops were not constructed on sewerage lines. He said that KCCI had apprised the City Nazim of the problem of the shopkeepers, and he assured the owners that their shops would not be demolished. He also announced inclusion of Munir Sultan in the joint committee of KCCI and KBCA.