KARACHI, Dec 11: Ten or 15 years ago, a familiar refrain among Pakistanis ran something like this: The country’s economic performance isn’t too bad as no Pakistani sleeps at night without first having a reasonable meal. And very few Pakistanis, if at all, are homeless.
Today, however, the situation seems to be a fairly changed one. One can see hordes of people living on footpaths, under the bridges and in front of shrines and mosques.
Reliable data are difficult to come by. However, economic indicators suggest, rather strongly, that homelessness is on the rise.
First of all, there’s a consensus now among the government officials, economists, social scientists and private businessmen that between 35 and 40 per cent of the population ekes out an existence below the poverty line. These people — numbering from 50 to 58 million — earn only Rs3,000 or less per month.
These people find it difficult even to buy life’s essentials, let alone its “luxuries” like own housing, etc. Even if they are initially blessed with houses they could call their own, there’s a real danger that come difficult times they will become shelterless.
According to a report prepared by a World Bank mission — given to the participants of a seminar on housing that got underway last week — 65 per cent of the households simply have no hope of buying or building a pucca house.
For that matter, these households cannot even afford a semi-pucca house. They must be provided assistance so that they could build one, said the report.
“... The rest of 65 per cent households who can afford only semi-pucca construction will require micro-finance on an incremental basis,” added the World Bank report.
Elsewhere, the report says: “... There is an increasing and chronic affordability strain on low income families constructing or renting housing in the private market.
“One solution that may precipitate a positive burst of growth should be the proliferation of micro-finance, in association with micro-credit, for the poorer segment of the households that constitute 65 per cent of the total number of households.”
The government’s Economic Survey 2001-02 too has hinted at the problem. According to it, there’s a shortfall of 4.3 million housing units in the country. Another survey, however, says the total backlog is close to the 5-million mark.
Now, if the average size of the family is taken to be only 5, then the total number of people without proper housing may be between 21.5 million and 25 million. In other words, 14.8 to 17.2 per cent of the total population doesn’t have proper housing — houses built on proper plots of land using reasonable construction techniques.
The survey has alluded to the enormity of the problem by saying that it could take twenty years to resolve it, provided the government every year managed to meet its goal of building the required number of units.
“In order to make up the backlog and meet the shortfall in the next 20 years,” said the survey, “the overall housing production has to be raised to 500,000 housing units per annum.” The World Bank report agrees with the Economic Survey on this point.
Now a question that arises here is: Will the low-income groups, who need the housing units badly, be able to buy on their own the ones that are built by the public or private sector? A short answer is ‘NO’. They will require assistance.
It is safe to say then that, given the present state of economy in which there’s a dearth of economic opportunities, the problem is unlikely to go easily.
The authorities seem to be indifferent towards the issue. The governments preceding Gen Musharraf’s simply chose to ignore the problem.
It’s true that a housing policy was formulated in 1992, but it has not been implemented yet. Gen Musharraf’s government did take note of the situation and released in Jan 2001 a document titled “Policy Guidelines: Report of the Committee on Kutcha Abadis, Upgrading and Urban Renewal”.
However, the steps mentioned by the government can best be described as “peanuts”.
One is compelled to say this because even though the Economic Survey called for an additional 500,000 housing units every year, what the government has come up is the construction of only 4,500 housing units or apartments in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad.
These units are planned to be built at a total cost of Rs5 billion. The National Housing Authority is slated to supervise the project.
