LAHORE: A key meeting on the Apni Chhat Apna Ghar programme was held under the chairmanship of Punjab Minister for Housing and Urban Development Bilal Yasin. The meeting decided to speed up the provision of interest-free loans for house construction across Punjab.
Secretary Housing and Urban Development Noor-ul-Amin Mengal gave a detailed briefing, informing that over 634,000 applications have been received under the programme. So far, construction of nearly 4,000 houses has been completed. The target for 2025 is to complete 100,000 houses.
Representatives from the Bank of Punjab, Akhuwat, DG PHATA Sikandar Zeeshan, and other allied departments also attended the meeting.
Instructions were issued to Akhuwat and other microfinance institutions (MFIs) to increase their staff and office outreach to speed up processing and loan disbursement.
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Bilal Yasin directed that awareness and facilitation centres should be set up at street, neighbourhood, tehsil, and district levels to guide applicants and make the process easier. He stressed that low-income and deserving families must be given all possible support in building their homes.
He also said that the screening process of existing applications should be expedited so that more people can apply and begin construction without delays.