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Housing shortage situation worsens further: HRC report

MEHMUD AHMED

ISLAMABAD: The surveyors of Human Rights Commission have reported that the already acute shortage of housing units in the country worsened during 1999, adding a further deficit of 150,000 units to a backlog of 6.45 million units. With an average household size put at 6.6 persons, the average occupancy was reported close to four persons to a room.

The current available stock stands at less than 20 million for a population seven times that size, they said, adding that two-thirds of them are in the rural areas.

The surveyors report a drop of 10 to 20 percent during 1999 in the prices of the real estate but expressed surprise over the rise in the prices of construction material which was said to be higher than the rate of inflation. It particularly pointed to a rise in the prices of cement which was Rs 80 to Rs 100 for a bag of 50 kg.

These statistics are part of the Tenth report of the Commission that reviewed the situation in Pakistan during 1999. It 'sadly recorded' that the investment in the housing sector declined sharply over the decade of 1990s from Rs.176 billion in 1991-92 to nearly by a half in 1996-97 which was reported to be at Rs 96 billion.

The decline slumped further during the recession of 1999 and the exact statistics of which the Commission officials say are under tabulation.

The surveyers also reported a fall in the public sector from 3.5 billion recorded in 1996-97.

The surveyors said that of the available units only one-fifth were pucca (solid brick and cement) structures and the rest were mud, shanty or semi-pucca dwellings.

The report expressed grave concern over the speed of urbanisation in Pakistan which, it said, was "one of the highest in the world" although agriculture, almost wholly rural based, was still the dominant sector of the economy and contributed about a quarter of the gross domestic product.

The urban population of 420 million, the surveyors said, grew by five percent, against the national growth of 2.7 percent Nearly 50 percent of the urban people lived in 2,000 squatter settlements of a hundred or more units each.

Karachi and Lahore were the most populated of the megalopolises.

Karachi's population grew by 4.8 percent which was twice the overall rate of the country. The population of the "poorer housing sector" (katchi abadies) rose by nine percent, at twice the pace of the city itself.

The country's principal port city (Karachi) is reported to have 539 of such katchi abadies that spread over more than 6, 271 hectares while a similar number were set up along river beds, railways lines and other scattered areas.

While the housing needs of Karachi grew by 80,000 units during the year, nearly 50 percent of it (ten millions) live in slums. The estimate is that 1.6 million people of Lyari, one of its poorest areas, had an average area of 3.65 sq metres, - the size of a dining table-cloth - to live on.

The 24.1 million urban population of the Punjab faced a shortage of over 1.3 million housing units, with Lahore included among the 15 countries of the world with the highest number of pavement dwellers - varying between 50,000 to 70,000. In addition, Lahore is reported to have 236 'katchi abadies' with more than a million residents, and Islamabad, the youngest city and the federal capital of the country, has more than half a dozen populous settlements.

The Commssion said that an attempt through a 1985 law was made to resolve the problem but it seemed to have brought profit to politicians and municipal officials who were reported to have transferred millions of rupees worth of state land in Qasur alone to the favourites claiming to be squatters of prized land. Without any loss of time they built 13 huge buildings on those sites.

In Karachi, the Commission quoted a World Bank report saying that 1,000 acres of highly priced land falls to the land grabbers every year.

The scene elsewhere in the whole country was no indifferent to the examples pointed out above and it looked as if a highly organised mafia was let loose to plunder the public lands. Once one falls a prey to this mafia, others selling water, electricity and sanitation facilities follow one after the other without any check.