Ijaz Kakakhel Islamabad
Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan has assured that all the stranded Pakistanis in Europe and the Middle East will be brought to the country by 20th of this month.
Speaking in the lower house of Parliament, the min-ister said PIA has been operating special flights to bring home Pakistanis stuck in European and Middle Eastern countries.
By now, 54,116 stranded Pakistanis have been brought to the country, the minister said, adding those in Europe and the UK were also being flown in through chartered flights.
Khan said overseas Pakistanis are the country’s precious asset and contribute immensely to the country’s economy. Their remittances reached $29 billion during the last fiscal year, he pointed out.
Responding to a calling attention notice, Adviser on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan said several projects have been initiated in different cities under Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme to provide low cost houses to the common man.
Construction of 45,000 housing units is underway and work on them will be completed in eighteen months’ time, he added.
Babar Awan said loans on low interest rates are also being provided to the people to construct houses. He said the banks have so far received 33506 loan applications amounting to Rs110 billion. He said loans worth Rs35 billion rupees have been approved.
He also informed the House that the government was also planning to go in partnership with Workers Welfare Fund, Lahore Development Authority, Quetta Development Authority, Peshawar Devel-opment Authority, Habib and Askari Banks and others.
These departments would distribute 50 per-cent houses to their nomination people while rest of the 50 percent the government will distribute under Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme.
The advisor further said that the concept was to installment of the houses would be pay like paying rent of house. But here, he said after completion their installment, they would become owner of their house.
