They were speaking on the first day of a three-day workshop on “Role of research and development institutions for introduction of appropriate technologies for low-cost housing / shelter in SAARC region,” organized by the Council for Works and Housing Research and sponsored by the SAARC-Japan Special Fund.
Delegates from six SAARC countries, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, are participating in the workshop while the Indian team could has not arrived.
The speakers said the government in a developing country owing to its financial constraints could not provide housing to everyone. However, it can act as a facilitator to, with strict monitoring of, the private sector which could assist in providing low-cost houses to the poor.
They said research had shown that nearly two-third of the total cost of a housing unit is based on construction material used in it, hence if low-cost material could be produced through research and development, the cost of the housing would drastically come down.
The speakers also urged the research and development institutions not to just invent new products and write research papers on the topic but also arrange marketing of their product also so that the industry and the common people could benefit from their research work.
Presenting the situation in the Karachi, they said that on the one hand nearly half of the population lives in slums kutcha abadis, and on the other, over 200,000 plots in various government schemes and thousands of apartments in different parts of the city remained unoccupied as the rich had purchased it for speculative purpose and the poor people were living in the slums due to relatively high cost of a housing unit.
They said that number of housing units in Pakistan was around 19.3 million, and there was a back-log of around 4.3 million houses, and annual requirement of the houses was roughly 0.57 million as compared to the annual production of approximately 0.3 million, leaving a shortfall of roughly 0.27 million, which was further complicating the already complex problem.
The delegate from Bangladesh, Mohammad Shahid Alam, presenting his country paper said a project for constructing two million housing units was in the final stages. He said the government also developed sites and services for the development of plots which later were provided to the people. Flats were also being developed in Dhaka, Mirpur, Rangamati and other towns. He said that the World Bank was also supporting an urban low-income housing project in Chittagong, etc.
He said that various organisations, like House Building Finance Corporation, Scheduled Banks, the Grameen Bank etc provided loans to the people at different mark-up rates to construct houses for themselves.
Karma Yezer Ryadi and Bachu Phub Dorji, presenting the country paper of Bhutan, said there were around 30,000 to 40,000 housing units in their country, having a population of around 600,000.
They said housing demand was most crucial in two main cities — its capital Thimphu and Phuentsholing — where annual growth rate was roughly seven per cent.
They said the country had a backlog of between 4,000 and 5,000 houses while it constructed between 300 and 400 houses a year. They said a large number of the people lived in rented houses and landlords could dictate rent and could evict the tenants on short notice.
Abdullah Talaal Ahmad of Maldives said his country comprised 1,200 small coral islands having a population of nearly 270,000 — that was growing at the rate of 2.8 per cent annually — living on only 200 islands, hence its urban centres were facing excessive overcrowding.
He said that 80,000 people lived in capital Male’s having an area of nearly 1.92 square kilometre. Nearly half of Male’s population lived in 10 persons in a unit and about one third lived in houses with more than 14 people per unit.
Kabindra Bahadur Bista presenting the country paper of Nepal said model low-cost houses were found not durable, functional and long lasting as these houses could not last even for five years.
He said that one of the reasons for it could be that the country had little exposure to new technology developed by the international research institutes.