KARACHI, April 2: Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Dr Ishrat Hussain, has agreed to the idea of providing small housing loans for the rehabilitation of the families affected by the Lyari Expressway Project.

Deliberations in this regard were held at a presentation given to the SBP governor here on Wednesday.

“The Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project (LERP) should prepare a proposal for the banks and the SBP will extend all cooperation to facilitate the rehabilitation of the shiftees,” Dr Ishrat said at the presentation given by the director of LERP, Shafiqur Rehman Paracha. City Nazim Naimatullah Khan was also present on the occasion.

“The banks have enough liquidity and interest rates are also low. Therefore, they should not have any problem,” he observed.

He said the banks were reluctant to give small loans, but if LERP served as supervisor and recovery agent, then they would definitely give a collective loan to people through LERP.

Dr Ishrat advised LERP officials to ensure full participation of the people with no middleman interference in the loaning process. He said necessary attention should be paid to generating employment opportunities, and if proper schemes were conceived in that regard, financial institutions would be willing to help in their materialization.

Dr Ishrat also addressed a group of 100 shiftees who had gathered in the seminar room of Civic Centre for receiving allotment letters and cheques.

Earlier, in his presentation, Mr Paracha said that around 1800 families had been given allotment letters and shifted to the Hawkesbay scheme, and 6000 more would get allotment letters by the end of June for settlement at Hawkesbay, Baldia and Taiser Town resettlement sites.

The city Nazim, speaking on the occasion, said that initially people were very angry and violent against the shifting of their homes, but when they came to know the advantages they started giving a positive response and now all were willing to shift to the new places with better facilities for living.

Later, Dr Ishrat Hussain paid a visit to the Lyari Expressway resettlement scheme at Lasbella and Hawkesbay. He appreciated the pace of work and said that the planned locality, when developed, could become a model for solving the urban congestion.

MPA’S COMMITTEE: Provincial minister for local government, Mohammed Hussain, has said that provision of shelter to the people with all basic facilities is the foremost responsibility of the government.