TWENTY acres of landlocked area on the outskirts of Lahore, spilling over to Sheikhupura district, is where Khuda Ki Basti (KKB) is located. This is a low-income housing model, an experiment initially designed for Hyderabad and Karachi in the 1980s. Styled as a self-help housing scheme, it has been hailed a success by many on the local and international front, and its current replication in Punjab is the first of its kind in the province.

Realising the shortage of affordable housing in the province, during his second term as prime minster Nawaz Sharif, and the Punjab government by extension, decided to replicate the KKB model. However, the project had to grapple with multiple obstacles.

The first was the ouster of the PML-N government in Oct 1999. The project survived but came face to face with another difficulty; within and around urban centres in Punjab, in cities like Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi, there seemed to be no state land available. Add to that rising land prices, and the project came close to being discarded.

However, in 2004 Tasneem Siddiqui, chairman of Saiban which provides housing solutions to low-income and marginalised communities, contacted the director of Katchi Abadi Punjab Hafiz Rashid Mahmood about the availability of funds to establish a KKB project in Karachi on private land. According to Siddiqui, he had managed to reroute the funds, after convincing donors, to instead initiate the project in Punjab.

“The KKB, inspired by the Orangi Pilot Project, is based on self-help so that the poor can afford a place of their own through payments made in instalments over a certain period of time,” explains Mahmood. “So it was necessary to make sure the land was affordable.”

And so at Rs500,000 per acre, the land was finally selected and purchased; the entire process was legal to the tee, so much so that almost a year passed before the project was finally approved.

What makes the project so revolutionary is the concept of incremental development which makes the home more affordable for the target population — the lower and the lower-middle class.

First, a plot sized approximately four marlas is allotted; residents must live there a minimum of five years otherwise the land is repossessed; electricity, sewerage, and water are all provided at different stages of the development. The total cost is Rs80,000 per plot which includes the value of the land as well as the development of the locality; however, this may fluctuate due to rising developmental costs.

When I enter the KKB, the place seems deserted. It is only when our guide calls out loud that residents trickle out of their humble abodes. Children appear first, followed by several women wrapping chadors around themselves. The men are away at work. And finally, the old emerge.

Saifur Rehman, who lives with his two sons and their families, explains one of the most favourable aspects of the scheme. “For residents, the most attractive part of the project is that each house owner is allowed to build the house the way he wants,” he says. “There is no blueprint. I myself have combined two plots together and constructed six rooms for a large family.” Other constructions in the basti simply have one bedroom, a conservative kitchen, and a much larger veranda.

The 12 blocks, with around 23 homes in each, are built following a standardised pattern. There is a garden in the middle of each block where young children come out to play and the elderly bask in the warm sun. In the brutal summer, this garden is deserted.

However, certain issues still need to be resolved at the basti. Aqeela speaks about the absence of a high school for boys. “There are two schools here, but the high school is only for girls,” she says. “So parents are compelled to send their sons to a neighbouring school, which can only be accessed across the railway crossing, which is an obvious hazard.”

Unfortunately, this is primarily because the approach road is still incomplete. According to Mahmood, the road was part of the citizens’ community board, a project signed with the district government in 2007-8. The particulars of the project stipulated that 20pc of the cost of construction would be paid by the residents of the KKB and the nearby settlement, while the remaining 80pc would be provided by the government. As of now, the residents’ contribution has been put to use, but the government has only released 20pc of the funds. The remaining grant is still pending.

Water supply has also suffered with residents depending on bores and handpumps. The lack of proper supply is due to the inability of residents to cough up the necessary funds and several urge the government to step in and alleviate their suffering.

Some of the families, having completed their minimum five-year stay, are moving closer to the city. But would they give up their homes at the KKB? “Not at all,” says Aqeela. “There is peace here, away from the city and its traffic and pollution. The neighbours are like family and we work together to resolve issues. I will come back to this home whenever I get a chance.”

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2016