ISLAMABAD, Feb 22: Government planners have proposed to develop 6,508 acres of state land near major cities for housing the homeless and saving them from the clutches of the land mafia.

Dawn learnt on Thursday that the scheme for developing "affordable residential plots" for citizens of limited means would soon be presented to the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (ECC) for consideration.

This move follows the Centre's directive to the provinces to firm up "some concrete proposals" for relieving housing problems of the general public.

Punjab, Sindh, the NWFP, Balochistan and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) have identified 12,786 Kanals, 9,277 Kanals, 2,400 Kanals, 9,600 Kanals and 18,000 Kanals of land respectively to be utilized for building new housing schemes to meet the growing demand of 400,000 houses annually.

Sources said that the provinces have been issued necessary instructions to strengthen their provincial, district and city government linkages for effectively planning and launching housing schemes for the general public on the basis of need.

The land computerization process has been started in three districts in the Punjab and will be completely by March 2007. The next phase will be started in 14 other districts, sources added.

Provinces have also been directed by the Centre to evolve private-public partnership for which funds for procuring land should be obtained from banks with no financing from the government exchequer for the proposed housing schemes.

Sources said that regarding private-public partnerships some development has taken place. The government of Punjab with the collaboration of an Abu Dhabi-based construction group has recently planned to develop a housing project -- Lake City on an area of 30,000 acres of land and also a Sport City on an area of 33,000 acres in Lahore.

It has also been proposed that two existing authorities — the National Housing Authority (NHA) and the Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) — should be replaced by an autonomous body to be established under the chairmanship of the prime minister for providing guidelines and ensuring implementation of land banking throughout the country. The body is expected to be named as the Federal Housing Development Authority (FHDA).

Similar housing developing authorities have also been proposed to be established at each provincial headquarter to be headed by its respective chief minister. The actual execution of the scheme will take place at the district level through the establishment of the District Housing Development Committee (DHDC) to be headed by the respective District Coordination Officer (DCO).

In this regard, it was likely to be made compulsory for all the provincial/district governments to procure additional 700 to 3,500 acres of land in the name of the Housing Development Authority in each town/tehsil either in one compact block or in different blocks, depending upon the local situation and the Master Plan of the urban centre exclusively for housing purposes.

This land will be disposed of in the prescribed manner to prospective local and foreign developers/investors in due course of time.