LAHORE: A consortium of seven commercial banks has been constituted to finance the construction of more than 4,000 residential units for employees of the Lahore Development Authority under phase-I of the LDA City Naya Pakistan Apartments project.

According to a spokesperson, senior officials of the banks called on LDA Vice Chairman SM Imran and Director General Ahmad Aziz Tarar on Wednesday to discuss modalities. The banks offered to provide 80 percent of the cost of these apartments as soft loans in the form of mortgage financing facility to the employees interested in purchasing these apartments.

Following directions of the government, banks have decided to extend loans to the prospective buyers at lower rates. Borrowers will have to pay only five per cent mark up on these loans. The employees will pay loans on long term easy installments.

The meeting was attended by the representatives of the Habib Bank, Bank of Punjab, Faisal Bank, Bank Al-Falah, UBL, Meezan Bank and National Bank.

Representatives of some banks from Karachi also attended the meeting through video link. The meeting was also attended by member of LDA Governing Body Engineer Amir Riaz Qureshi, additional DGs Farqaleet Mir and Rana Taka Khan, Chief Metropolitan Planner Syed Muhammad Nadeem Akhtar Zaidi, Chief Engineer Abdul Razzaq Chauhan, Director (Finance) Muhammad Akhtar and other officers concerned.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2020