Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday launched a landmark five-year, Rs3.2 trillion housing program, aimed at funding the construction of 500,000 homes nationwide, with a vision to provide affordable shelter for low-income citizens, lacking the financial means to build their own houses.
The prime minister, addressing the program’s launch ceremony of Wazir-e-Azam Apna Ghar Program, said that besides enabling people to own a house, the initiative will also act as a powerful economic multiplier to boost significant industrial growth and create jobs for a diverse workforce, ranging from manual laborers to engineers.
“No program is quite as dear to me as this, for it holds the promise of revitalizing our industrial and commercial sectors while paving the way for economic prosperity… This landmark program is the culmination of extensive deliberations and tireless effort, having successfully overcome a myriad of complex challenges,” the prime minister told the ceremony attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Housing and Works Minister Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada, other federal ministers, banking professionals, representatives from the construction industry, and the beneficiaries of the program.
He described the “Apna Ghar” initiative as a sacred obligation of any government, intended to support the needy who have long been deprived of the security of homeownership.
Prime Minister Shehbaz, who earlier pushed the button to launch the initiative and distributed cheques of loans among the beneficiaries, sanctioned by different banks, said that the program was a reflection of Ashiana housing scheme he had launched while being Chief Minister of Punjab.
