KARACHI, May 28: The Sindh Government, which has planned 10,000 houses for shelter-less people in rural areas, handed over 4,623 homes to poor families and out of 358 flats in Landhi, possession of 155 flats in Karachi was given to families of PPP rally martyrs in Karachi and Rawalpindi.
This emerged from the briefing given to Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, who presided over the meeting held at the CM House on Monday for reviewing the policy for allotment of cells being built by the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Housing Cell at Landhi Railway Station, Karachi.
Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said that the government was pursuing its programme to provide homes for the shelter-less people of the province.
There are two separate schemes — one to provide flats and houses to families of those workers who sacrificed their lives in the blasts on October 18, 2007, at Karsaz, Karachi, and on December 27, 2007, at Rawalpindi. This scheme is being implemented by the SBB Housing Cell at Landhi while the other scheme pertains to construction of 10,000 housing units for poor families, being executed by Pakistan Housing Authority.
The meeting was informed that out of the 10,000 houses so far 4,623 were built and handed over to poor people while work on 1,283 units was in advance stages, likely to be ready by July, 2012.
The chief minister stressed the need to accelerate the pace of work as to attain the target of building 10,000 houses by the end of December, 2012.
The master plan for setting up a housing scheme for the poor in Khairpur has been prepared, which will have 1,530 residential plots and 188 commercial plots measuring 100 sq yards.
Reviewing the progress of SBB Housing cell, the meeting was informed that out of the 155 flats, 120 have already been presented to the families while the documents for the remaining 35 families were being prepared.
The meeting was further informed that the Sindh Government had purchased 488 flats from the Pakistan Housing Authority, and possession of 120 flats
was taken over by SGA&CD. It was decided that the SGA&CD will now take over the possession of 130 flats from SBB Housing Cell to be used for residence of government officers/staff. The chief minister further directed that construction of at least 10,000 more houses should be planned for flood-affected families, particularly for the poor people living in District Badin, Umerkot, Sanghar, Khairpur, Shikarpur, Mirpurkhas and other districts.
For this purpose a committee was constituted, comprising the agriculture minister and housing minister, to formalise a list of deserving affected families in consultation with local representatives of each district.Among others, those present at the meeting included Housing Minister Agha Taimoor Khan, Chief Secretary Raja Mohammad Abbas, Chairman SBB Housing Cell Syed Mazhar Abbas, Secretary Finance Naveed Kamran Baloch, Secretary Law Syed Ghulam Nabi Shah, Secretary (GA) SGA&CD Waseem Ahmed and Secretary to the CM Agha Jan Akhtar.