-Gov SBP says PM’s housing scheme receives overwhelming response of people
By Uzma Zafar
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Sunday while taking notice of difficulties facing the applicants, instructed the State Bank and National Bank of Pakistan to facilitate those applying for low-cost housing loan under Naya Pakistan Housing Program.
Addressing the National Bank of Pakistan’s telethon on low cost housing loan, the prime minister asked the State Bank to instruct commercial banks to ease the loaning process for the applicants.
Simultaneously aired on Pakistan Television and different private channels, the telethon was attended by Senator Shibli Faraz, Chairman of Naya Pakistan Housing and Development Authority Lt. General (Retd) Anwar Ali Hyder, State Bank Governor Raza Baqir, President of National Bank of Pakistan Arif Usmani and Executive Director SBP Samar Hasnain.
The prime minister joined the telethon telephonically for being in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19 a week ago.
Imran Khan said that the NBP, being the premier bank of the country, should also instruct its staffers, to facilitate the loan applicants, observing that the bank employees were also not in habit of extending such easy loans to the cashless people.
He said there was no such concept of housing loan for the poor people in the country, that was why the people were facing difficulties in the beginning.
The prime minister said that once the people started building their own house, the construction industry would boom to help boost allied 30 other industries. Consequently, the wealth would create and increase revenue for the country besides creating jobs for the people, he added.
He said this was the first time in Pakistan that the salaried class or the people with no cash were getting opportunity to own a house.
Imran Khan said the program had been designed in such a way that the beneficiaries currently giving money to pay house rent would be using the same to pay housing loan installment.
As per details, the beneficiaries of the housing loans would have to pay monthly installment of Rs 6,600 for 1 million loan, Rs 13,199 for two million, Rs 19,799 for three million, Rs 26,398 for four million, and Rs 32,998 for five million loan. The prime minister said the people across the world like Europe or USA bought their houses through bank loans but it had not been a practice in Pakistan. He said under the program, not only the people would own a house rather the national economy would also get a boost. He said as the country was under debt burden, the wealth creation was direly needed to increase the revenue.
“In all ways, this is an important project for the country,” the prime minister remarked. To a question, the prime minister said the government would give preference to the widows and differently-abled person to give them houses under the program for they being the government’s responsibility.
The people aspiring to own a house under the prime minister’s pro-poor housing program, joined the transmission by calling at 0519215595 and the panelists responded to their complaints. Governor SBP Raza Baqir said the banks had eased out the loaning conditions. In order to facilitate the applicants, the SBP had standardized the list of documents required for housing loans. The applicants would require to provide copy of CNIC, two passport sized photo, salary slip in case of job or copy of rent agreement of shop or house to make the banks assess the income and fix an installment.
Moreover, the SBP had also established 16 offices to register complaints and guide the applicants of the housing loan. Anwar Ali Hyder said the government has announced to extend Rs 300,000 subsidy for the construction of each first 100,000 houses to be constructed under the Naya Pakistan Housing Program.
President NBP Arif Usmani said the people could directly approach him through contact No. 03025567776 in case of any glitch in their loan process. Senator Shibli Faraz said this was the beginning of fulfillment of a dream to develop Pakistan as welfare state.
