ISLAMABAD, June 9: The government will construct 250,000 low-cost housing units to provide cheap accommodation facility to the low-income group.

The Minister of State for Finance, Omar Ayub Khan, said in his budget speech on Saturday that low-cost housing scheme would be started in collaboration with the provincial and district governments for which the House Building Finance Corporation would provide soft loans.

He said under the scheme an estimated number of 250,000 units would be constructed in the next five years.

The minister said another scheme for low paid government employees would be launched under which 37,000 housing units would be given to the employees on ownership basis.

The government employees, he said, would have the facility to get loans for the construction work.

Meanwhile, the government has allocated a sum of Rs1.206 billion for the housing ministry against Rs1.194 billion fund provided to the ministry under the Public Sector Development Programme for the last fiscal year.