Student architects to help the govt. build 5m houses

ISLAMABAD:            To build 5 million low cost houses in Pakistan, the government will capitalise on the skills of student architects, said Zaigham Rizvi, Chairman of the Federal Task Force on Naya Pakistan Housing Programme.

He said that the project is an ambitious plan that will help bring local industry, new technologies and young workforce to utilisation, which eventually will lower down the overall project cost.

He added that Prime Minister Imran Khan is committed to construct 4 million houses in the rural and urban areas, while one million in the pre-urban regions of the country, over the next five years.

“Affordable housing is not just an issue in poor countries; it is an issue in nearly every country,” Rizvi said.

“But the promise of ‘housing for all’ is usually nothing more than a political slogan, and rarely implemented because of a lack of will or because the institutional framework is lacking,” he added.

According to United Nations, more than half of Pakistan’s projected 250 million citizens will be living in cities by 2030. This programme is expected to meet half of Pakistan’s housing needs, which are gradually increasing.

He further added that under the housing project, more than two dozen pilot villages will be built in Punjab by using wasteland, grazing land and unused public lands.

“We want to engage the youth in solving the nation’s problems. In the village, they are not used to high-rise buildings, so they will be at most one-storey buildings,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Get to know more about Famous architects in Pakistan.