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ISLAMABAD, Apr 15 (APP):Ministry of Housing and Works has unveiled the first draft of National Housing Policy 2025 prepared by its Policy and Planning Wing on Tuesday.
The draft followed the revision of existing housing policy that was announced in 2001.Extensive efforts had been made to present this policy by consulting and incorporating inputs from all major stakeholders that were academia, housing experts and from relevant provincial departments.
At the first stage, two working groups of experts participated in focus group discussions to identify current policy gaps.Later, their recommendations were consolidated into a detailed policy draft.
The latest housing policy aimed to address the factors behind the large-scale urban migration and mushroom growth of unplanned housing societies leading to the slum areas.
The policy outlined the current housing crisis that has been estimated as shortage of 10 million housing units in the country and the financial constraints with abrupt rising in the cost of housing components.
Vision statement of the housing policy was: “adequate, affordable and sustainable housing for all”. It focused on nine thematic areas and would present policy measures and reforms to address the current challenges by identifying demand and supply gap and focusing on micro-financing, dependence on locally manufactured material, disaster management, urban regeneration, enhanced coordination and capacity building.
Federal Minister for Housing and Works Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada presided over a meeting today to get the final briefing on the upcoming policy draft.
It was noted that the challenges in housing sector mainly stem from poor planning and lack of necessary facilities and amenities in small towns. This factor was encouraging massive urban migration causing huge loss of fertile agricultural land.
During the meeting experts emphasized that agriculture was the major source of sustenance and unplanned housing societies were negatively impacting this sector.
They agreed that maintaining accurate data at district and municipal could be helpful for better planning and reclaiming of land for future schemes.Minister Pirzada stressed on the critical need of planning and implementation in this policy.
He stated that we were far behind in purposeful planning based on formal studies and data base analysis.He said that empowering and involving the local governments could resolve the ongoing housing issues in the country.
Moreover, the minister underscored that following the 18th Constitutional Amendment, housing was the key responsibility of the provinces.
He added that Federal ministry’s role would be to provide the guidelines through national policy from where concerning provincial departments would derive their way forward.
“We cannot recommend a single model of housing for the whole country but the provincial governments will implement and regulate on the policy and they will choose region-specific, sustainable housing model keeping in view the flora and fauna,” the minister reiterated.