October 13, 2003	Monday	Sha'aban 16, 1424

If almost a third of the people of the world will live in squalid slums 30 years from now as the latest report of the UN Habitat projects, how many more in Pakistan will be languishing in more such horrid slums which will be springing up all over the country?

What that means is while almost a third of the people are already living in the cities and towns in developing countries no less than an equal number will be living in such squalid slums.

The 300-page latest report of the UN organizations study on housing says two-thirds of the world’s slums are now in Asia, while 43 per cent of them spread over the developing countries.

But while housing for the poor is making rapid headway in China, Singapore and Thailand such significant progress is not notable in other developing countries.

In fact, it is after 1980s when the world became aware of the global housing problems and the UN Habitat came into being in Nairobi there has been little improvement in this area.

The main problem is, very few countries, cities or agencies have recognised the critical situation, and outside of a few rapidly advancing countries very few development effort for providing jobs is going into these people or planning for land, housing and services which these 2 billion people will need.

Apart from jobs they will have to be provided with housing, schools, hospitals, parks and playing fields in addition to drinking water and other services. But the already built cities are facing acute water problem and the people have to buy water at a high price,often polluted water. And some times even the high priced and much advertised bottled water is not safe.

The report says that Mexico and Brazil have slowed down slum-formation by regularising tenure and singled out South Africa’s house-building programme for praise. Otherwise in Sub-saharan Africa the proportion of slums if 72 per cent of the homes.

Ms Anna Tibajuka who is the UN agency’s executive director, says the UN’s Millennium Development Goals aim for a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. Even if that is achieved it will only touch the tip of the problem, she says.

“Slum formation is the challenge of our times,” she says as she sees the situation worsening an fearing that one-third of humanity could be living in slums by mid century.

Countries like Pakistan which already face this problem in a large dimension have to sit up and think. Other countries in the region include India with its famous Mumbai slums and Bangladesh which together have 1.4 billion people of whom 40 per cent or more live below the poverty line. And as the population increases and more and more people move to the cities and live in slums the problem is steadily aggravated.

Instead of attending to the grave problem, they are spending more and more on the military. India leads the way senselessly followed by Pakistan ad Bangladesh, too, in tow.

The report defines slums by a set of measures including sanitation and water supply which is a major problem in many cities, particularly in South Asian cities.

India can lead the way and reduce its military expenditure. But India is more interested in matching its military capability with that of China and hence has an active military cooperation agreement with the US on one side and Russia on the other. And Pakistanis desperately looking for means to balance that military strength in conventional weapons.

In the process more and more land in the South Asia is used for military cantonments and other military purposes and build more housing colonies for soldiers and housing societies for their military officers.

Pakistan had now 19.3 million housing units with a backlog of 4.3 million, which if completed can make a total of 23.6 million for a population of over 140 millions. That means that if the backlog is built on, there will be a home of some kind for an average of 6 persons, which is regarded the family unit in Pakistan.

But now with joint families splitting and nuclear families coming to live separately far more homes will be needed. So the government should be thinking of a family of four persons by the year 2010 which is a distant dream as the rents go up and homes cost more and more to build.

Pakistan needs to build 600,000 homes in a year on an average if the backlog of 4.3 million is to be completed by the year 2020 — 16 years from now.

Instead only 300,000 housing units, on an average, are being built each year. That means as the population goes on increasing the gap between the need for homes and the available homes will increase and create serious social problems.

According to the official statistics rural housing constitute 67 per cent of the homes in the country and urban homes 33 per cent, out of the 19.3 housing units in the country.

In Sindh, in particular, the total number of housing units is 4.4 million of which 48.75 per cent is rural units and 51.25 urban housing. The housing backlog in the country is about one million units but the annual construction of housing is hardly 69,000, while it needs 138,000 units annually to cover the shortfall in 20 years, according to official studies.

But let apart slums around cities like Karachi, even the settled areas are turning into slums for want of water and other basic amenities, and over-building to accommodate more and more persons.

The cost of building is too high and the cost of repair even higher. And the workmanship is often shoddy, particularly on old homes which need to be preserved carefully. As too many persons occupy such homes and maintain them poorly they fall apart quick.

There has been a great deal of official talk about promoting house building to provide employment to the vast mass of the unemployed. But apart from lowering the interest rate on housing finance to an extent, not much has been done.

Finance minister Shaukat Aziz said he was reducing the taxes on cement and steel rods. But the significant reduction of 25 per cent in excise duty has been on cement, while the relief on steel rods has not been significant. But interest rates on housing finance has come down and finally Bank of Al Falah has announced a seven per cent interest in keeping with the low interest all around for commercial and industrial purposes.

But too many persons are un-employed and their savings are small. And the cost of construction is still too high as the cement makers have not passed on the total relief on excise duty to the house-builders.

There are very heavy duties on building materials, including steel, wood, paint and other components of building. For many years now the government has been taxing the building materials as they used to tax liquor and cigarettes in the past and made house building and repairing too expansive. There is nothing like cheap housing or Awami housing in the country now.

In such an environment the Defence Housing Authority comes up with the super luxury Creek City with 90 per cent of the loans outright from the Askari Commercial Bank. And the Pakistan Navy is now talking of a naval colony and a Bahria town for the rich with the largest shopping mall in Asia.

How comfortable and safe are we going to feel with Creek City and Bahria Town with its super Mall and the increase in slums all round as the UN fears?

Now we have created a Sindh Kutchi Abadi Authority to settle the people of the Katchi Abadis in the city and elsewhere. As they are settled, more people will come from upcountry, as they have been coming, to provide votes to the politicians here from the north.