ludUO

250
Housing
280
260
240
220
200
Deaths,
234
Figure 1.2
Injuries,
273
structures in a katchi
abadi in Islamabad
were demolished by
the Capital
Development
Authority in May.
The quality of
buildings and houses
in the country
remained poor and
numerous houses collapsed in 2012, claiming precious lives. Figure 1.1 shows
the number of houses, factories and commercial buildings that collapsed due
to various reasons during the year under review.
Figure 1.2 shows the number of people killed and injured in the collapse
of entire houses or their walls and roofs in 2012.
Low-cost housing
Low-cost housing and plot distributions through ballots are well known
methods of providing relief to the homeless and reducing the housing shortage
in the country. However, the state of housing in Pakistan demanded a consistent
and dedicated programme to alleviate the housing shortage. Halfhearted efforts
close to the general election, and those too fraught with legal problems, did
little to solve longstanding problems.
Different academics and scholars argued that there was not necessarily a
shortage of land or funds to meet the required housing need. They thought
that the government did not have a pro-poor policy. A celebrated architect and
social researcher wrote in his paper called Environment and Urbanization (2005)
that the focus was primarily on providing luxury houses to the upper-middle
and upper classes. Several posh housing schemes were launched during the
year under review while little was done to allocate land for housing needs of
those who could not afford a house without state support.
In the past few years, some regions of Pakistan have received
announcement of many low-cost housing schemes. In the year 2012, 5,487
plots were distributed through computerised balloting among the homeless in
Pakpattan, Rawalpindi, Multan and Hafizabad districts of Punjab under the
Chief Minister’s Jinnah Abadi scheme.
However, most of the promises made in earlier years were no nearer to
fruition. The much promoted Ashiyana Housing Scheme, initiated by the Punjab
government, also suffered setbacks in places. The Supreme Court declared
use of land allotted for the scheme in Lahore illegal and issued a stay order,
stating that the transfer of the land was illegal under provisions of the Punjab
Waqf Properties Ordinance of 1979. According to Section 17 of that law, “a