ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday assured the families of missing persons that he would update them on the progress so far made on their recovery.

Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari said in a tweet that the prime minister met three members of a Balochistan missing persons committee representing 13 families who staged a sit-in last month outside the Parliament House.

“PM has asked the principal secretary to ascertain quickly the exact status of missing family members and committed to update the committee members on progress,” she tweeted.

Ms Mazari had in February assured the protesting families of missing persons from Balochistan that she will arrange their meeting with the prime minister so that they could lodge their complaints directly with him.

Imran allots flats, houses for poor workers, widows on low-cost mortgage

Prime Minister Khan had last month said he wanted not a single missing person in the country.

Meanwhile, a source in the PM Office told Dawn that Prime Minister Khan would take people’s complaints directly on telephone on Sunday.

Flats, houses

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday allotted 1,008 flats and 500 houses for poor workers and widows on low-cost mortgage in a bid to uplift the weaker segments of society.

He performed balloting at the site of affordable residences constructed in the suburbs of Islamabad, under the Naya Pakistan Housing Project, carried out by Workers Welfare Fund and Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development.

Speaking on the occasion, Prime Minister Khan said the project was in line with the vision of facilitating the lower class which faced hardship in owning a house, particularly in urban areas. “Naya Pakistan is in fact a vision of empowering the weaker segments of society through economic emancipation and provision of basic necessities of life.”

The prime minister said that under the mortgage system, the rent paid would be converted into instalments of the total cost of the house or flat. He said the government would give Rs0.3 million as subsidy on each house and also ensure that the mark-up rate did not exceed five per cent.

The prime minister lauded the efforts of the Workers Welfare Fund team for reviving the project that lingered on for the last 25 years and regretted that the previous governments never gave priority to the working class.

He said that in the first phase over 1,500 flats and houses would be distributed and the same number would be replicated in the second phase. The project will be expanded to other parts of the country, he added.

Mr Khan said that owning a house was one’s big dream, adding that even rich countries could not give away houses free of cost, but on mortgage.

The prime minister also inspected the constructed houses and flats and planted a sapling on the premises. He also laid the foundation stone for the next phase of 1,500 more flats and houses.

Constructed in Zone V of the federal capital and around 15 minutes drive from the Islamabad Expressway, the multi-storey units will provide a decent living for small families with electricity, natural gas and water supply. The flats and houses are being handed over at 10 per cent payment of the total cost.

The housing units, each with a living room, two bedrooms a kitchen and a bath, have been constructed under the Workers Welfare Fund and the Naya Pakistan Housing Project has provided a subsidy of Rs300,000 for each unit.

The Labour Complex once completed will straddle over an area of 2,560 kanals of prime land huddled between the posh Naval Anchorage and Gulberg Greens.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2021