March 27, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 18, 1429

RAWALPINDI, March 26: As the major cities of the Punjab face an acute housing shortfall, a Punjab government report says the situation was deteriorating day by day, but at the same time the poor lot in the province should not be relegated permanently to settle near putrid nullahs, riverbeds, under railway and road bridges and urban fringes without even rudimentary living facilities.

The Punjab government report estimates that about 50 per cent of the urban population lives in kutchi abadis, slums, and other informal settlements.

The huge housing shortage is already apparent in the province and more and more kutchi abadis have surfaced to cater to the housing needs of the poorest, discloses the report which was prepared towards the end of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi’s rule in the province.

The report says the poor also need a living environment that is appropriately located and reasonably serviced by public and infrastructural facilities in accordance with their affordability.

The former chief minister had made tall claims of socio- economic development in the province, but the report exposed the poor state of the social situation.

Millions of rupees were spent merely on image-building rather than spending public exchequer on public welfare.

The Punjab government report says the province currently has 10.6 million housing units with a backlog of 2.4 million, and would needs to build 330,000 units annually on average if the backlog is to be wiped out by 2020.

This is indeed a tall order and if the backlog is not met then with current rates of population growth and migration, the demand-supply gap will widen, creating further social and economic problems in the entire province, the report warns.

The report says though 81 per cent of households in the Punjab own a house; a considerable proportion — almost 50 per cent — does not have adequate toilet, sanitation, and kitchen facilities.

However, a comparison of data from the 1998 Population Census and the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement survey for 2004-05 reveals that provision of water and electricity has improved considerably.

In addition, while tap water remains the main source of drinking water for most urban households, poorer households now depend on hand pumps. Improper drainage and poor systems of garbage collection indicate unhygienic living conditions in some urban localities.

Rapid urbanisation poses a massive housing challenge for the Punjab government. About 35 per cent of the urban population lives in slums and another 11.5 per cent in kutchi abadis. Due to the rapid rise in land prices, slum dwellers have no means of moving out to areas provided with better municipal services.

Speculation in real estate has encouraged land grabbing and accelerated the increase in number of kutchi abadis, says the report.

According to the report, the number of people per house in urban Punjab was gradually increasing due to natural growth and migration from rural areas and the low rate of increase in houses constructed.

The low-income housing schemes developed by various housing agencies are well beyond the affordability of low-income groups. The absence of planned efforts to meet the housing standards of the urban poor has resulted in the spontaneous formation of slums and kutchi abadis in different areas of the metropolises, including on prime urban land, vulnerable catchment areas of rivers and nullahs, and other unsafe areas, it says.

Land suitable for housing is becoming scarce, particularly in and around urban centres. Land value continues to increase with unchecked speculation resulting in the virtual non- availability of affordable land, especially for low-income groups.

Land is the principle input to housing, but is under constant pressure from competing uses by the public and private sectors. The situation is further worsened by the unchecked growth of settlements, spiralling land values, complicated land acquisition laws, and allotment of plots.

Estimates suggest that more than 50 per cent of Punjab’s houses are over 50 years old and are rapidly deteriorating due to general neglect and civic apathy on the part of their owners or residents. The quality of building materials also needs to be improved.

A study on Urban Land and Housing Markets in the Punjab in its assessment of key performance measures of the Punjab’s urban land housing markets — urban land supply, land prices, quality of the housing stock, access to urban services, construction costs, private sector participation in real estate development and levels of informality in the housing production sector — confirms that the province’s urban housing markets are not operating efficiently.

The background study by the World Bank indicates a range of impediments to efficient urban land and housing market performance, namely excessive public land ownership, inadequate infrastructure services, weak property rights, counterproductive urban planning policies and regulations, costly subdivision and construction regulations, limited financing for property development and acquisition, rent controls and distortive taxation mechanisms.

The study calls for close coordination between the federal, provincial and local levels of governments to address the looming challenges posed by rapid urban development.

Governments at all levels, the study reiterates, “should focus on the establishment of an enabling environment through strengthening the legal framework, particularly, for property rights, modernising its planning, zoning and construction regulations and approaches, withdrawal from direct interventions in the market and facilitating greater involvement of the private sector.”