Punjab approves 224,000 interest-free home loans under Apni Chhat Apna Ghar
Punjab has approved more than 224,000 cases for interest-free housing loans under its Apni Chhat Apna Ghar Programme, provincial housing minister Bilal Yasin said, according to a report by Business Recorder. The figure covers families approved for interest-free loans to build their own homes.
Yasin gave a divisional breakdown of beneficiaries: 29,658 families in Sargodha division, 26,903 in Rawalpindi, 26,878 in Dera Ghazi Khan, 26,165 in Gujranwala, 25,468 in Lahore, 25,402 in Faisalabad, 21,804 in Bahawalpur and 13,584 in Sahiwal. The minister was speaking by telephone to programme beneficiaries in Bahawalpur, Sahiwal and Sargodha to review construction progress.
He directed officials to establish direct contact with beneficiary families in all districts to gather public feedback, saying it would be used to strengthen transparency, ensure merit and improve implementation so that more families could benefit. He described the programme as an initiative built on transparency, merit and public service that was strengthening confidence in merit-based government schemes.
The programme is a subsidised credit scheme rather than a market instrument, and the report gave no details on its fiscal cost, funding source or default arrangements. For Pakistan's housing finance market, where mortgage penetration remains low and borrowing costs high, interest-free construction loans reach households largely outside the commercial banking system.
The announcement comes as Punjab's government seeks to show delivery on housing. The report did not say how many of the approved loans have been disbursed or how many homes have been completed.
