Islamabad: Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) has decided to launch a housing scheme for ownership basis for officers of BPS-17 and above of all departments of the federal government including federally constituted occupational groups in Islamabad and all the four provincial capitals. This housing scheme will be completed in two phases as approved by the Prime Minister according to a senior official of the Pakistan Housing Authority. According to details, officers of Federally Constituted Occupational Groups including Supreme Court of Pakistan, National Assembly and Senate besides others in BPS-17 and above will be eligible for it under phase-I. However, federal government officers of BPS-17 and above of all other Federal departments will be eligible under phase-II of the scheme. Responding to a question, the official said that these housing schemes were being under taken as per approval of prime minister for all federal government officers of BPS-17 and above in phases. continue

Demand in the Indian residential market is expected to turn positive in 2010 due to improvement in affordability, steady economic growth and greater liquidity, says a Crisil research report on the real estate sector. However, the decline in the currently overpriced capital values of all three real estate segments of residential, commercial and retail will persist through 2009. Commercial and retail markets will continue to see erosion of lease rentals in the next two years, it says. The report is an analysis of over 400 areas across 88 micro-markets in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai-MMR, National Capital Region and Pune. Mr Sudhir Nair, Head, Crisil Research, said: “Accelerated growth of Indian economy, recovery of global economy, improved liquidity and expected fall in interest rates are key factors that will signal demand revival in the residential segment. This segment is likely to see a much faster revival due to a strong underlying demand for housing and supply coming at attractive price points.” continue

ISLAMABAD: Prolonged delay in revision of capital’s master plan is aggravating the problem of housing units’ shortage in the city with every passing day, an official of Capital Development Authority (CDA) told Daily Times on Friday. “In time revision of master plan could have saved CDA from many problems it was facing presently,” he added. CDA has so far failed to give final shape to the revised master plan of Islamabad on which it started work some four years back, he said. The CDA had hired a consultant firm Mott McDonald Pakistan (MMP) some four years ago for this purpose. The firm prepared a proposal and presented to CDA board, which expressed its dissatisfaction with the plan, terming it unable to cater to the future needs of town, he said. He said the CDA Board had asked the Planning Wing to suggest ways and means to address the shortcomings in question within a month and submit a revised version of the plan. The CDA officials concerned planned to engage Doxiadis Associates, a Greek firm that had prepared the city’s original master plan in 1960, for the job but couldn’t do so for certain reasons, the official said. continue

ISLAMABAD: In an effort to deal with the adverse effects of rising population in the existing cities, the government plans to develop new ones along major highways, it has been learnt. The National Trade Corridor (NTC), work on which is under way, is proposed to be linked to these cities, which would also serve as logistics centres, special economic zones and industrial and technology parks. Under the initiative, the draft National Spatial Policy 2009-10 will be finalised within the framework of ‘Vision 2030’ to maximise human settlement efficiency, sources said. According to official figures, at present more than one-thirds of the country’s population — or about 56 million people — live in urban areas. By 2030, Pakistan would have to overcome the challenge of managing an additional 70 million to 80 million city dwellers. Mega cities like Karachi and Lahore — both ranked low on the City Development Index — are proposed to operate under a new set of economic dynamics, necessitating increasing non-farm employment, removing rural-urban disparities and developing balanced settlement hierarchies. continue

Karachi: Nazim Karachi Syed Mustafa Kamal has announced to establish “Karachi Development Trust” to carry on the process of development and maintenance of infrastructure in Karachi.The utilization of the fund collected under this trust would be authorized by a five member board comprised of non controversial and non political personalities. He also suggested the names of (R) Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, former Governor of State Bank Dr. Ishrat Hussain and famous surgeon Dr. Adeeb Rizvi as possible trustees while he himself submitted the form to donate one thousand rupees each month in the account of the Karachi Development Trust. He said that if all account holders donate only Rs.5 in this account than we could collect Rs.45million monthly. continue

Spurred by price corrections, new launches, lowering of interest rates, increase in sales inquiries and, more importantly, the newfound mantra of ‘affordable housing’, the real estate industry has started showing signs of recovery. Industry body Assocham has gone to the extent of saying that the real estate recovery is possible in the coming three months. A recent Assocham Business Barometer (ABB) survey has found that anticipating strong policy measures for the real estate in the forthcoming Budget, embattled realty majors see positive signs of recovery taking place within the next three months as affordable housing projects rev up demand and improved cash flows address their liquidity concerns. continue

ISLAMABAD: Capital Development Authority (CDA) is likely to present its annual budget for the fiscal year 2009-10 in next week, however, official are tight-lipped over pros and cons of the budget before its official announcement. Talking to this news agency on Tuesday, CDA Member Finance Saeedur Rehman said the authority’s Board of Finance had not yet approved the budget, however, its draft has been prepared. “Before formal announcement, the budget would be sent to the Secretary Cabinet Division for review, he said. It is learnt that major chunk of the budget would be spent on development of roads, new sectors, improvement of water supply system and funding projects already under progress. The authority would sell out big plots situated in various sectors to gather funds for budgetary expenditure. Meanwhile, keeping in view the growing needs of CDA, the government has increased funding to the authority under its Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP). The civic authority would spend amount for the completion of its ongoing mega projects and on security of the important buildings. There is no proposal of increasing tax ratio in the federal capital.

Punjab: The Punjab government has created a new head of Special Infrastructure in the Annual Development Program (ADP) and put major infrastructure development projects including Lahore Ring Road Project, (LRR), Sialkot-Lahore Motorway (SLM) and Lahore Rapid Mass Transit System (LRMTS) projects into the head.

The projects are, technically, included in the infrastructure development head but the government has created a new head for it without mentioning its need in the budget documents. The LRR and SLM projects are the road infrastructure development projects. The government has reduced the allocation for the road development by 25.2 per cent in this fiscal year but allocated a hefty amount for these projects.

Karachi:The Defence Society Residents’ Association (DSRA) has appealed to the Defence residents that they should refuse to pay recently imposed Refurbishment charges “arbitrarily and illegally” imposed on them by the DHA.  Speaking at a press conference here on Monday, DSRA President Captain Haleem A Siddiqui said that the recently held meeting of the central executive committee of his association had decided to initiate a lawsuit against the imposition of the Refurbishment charges (also known as infrastructure tax) on the DHA residents.  These refurbishment charges is being justified under the pretext that the DHA had spent Rs2.5 billion to construct rainwater drainage system in the DHA and that the DHA needs to recover its expenses, he said.  “First of all, the DHA being the land developer had been negligent in making sure that all the areas being developed should have had a suitable rainwater drainage system during their development stage. Absence of rainwater drainage in the DHA was finally exposed after flooding of the area during the 2007 monsoon rains,” said Siddiqui. continue

Islamabad: Capital Development Authority (CDA) has issued a no-objection certificate (NOC) to Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA), enabling the latter to launch a housing scheme in a Kurri Road area for the BPS-17 federal government officers of various occupational groups. The PHA has started housing schemes in various cities under Prime Minister’s Housing programme aimed at providing houses or flats to the needy, government employees and general public at affordable cost. Under this programme, one million housing units will be constructed annually to address the housing problems of people to a great extent. According to a survey, there is a need of 71 to 80 million housing units to accommodate homeless people in the country.  app