In April 2019, Imran Khan launched the Naya Pakistan Housing scheme, a project with the aim of uplifting the poor of Pakistan.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has launched the Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme to construct houses across the country for the uplift of the poor strata of the society and to bring them into the national mainstream.#NayaPakistanHousingScheme pic.twitter.com/8Vvyoi22bz
— Government of Pakistan (@GovtofPakistan) May 5, 2019
Research shows that in 2020 that 20 million people in Pakistan were homeless, and around 35% of the people in Pakistan live below the poverty line. It is a dream of most lower-class people in Pakistan to own a home, but achieving it is difficult for some and impossible for many people working in the blue-collar industry.
This is because of the high price of real estate in Pakistan, that people have to gather all of their life’s savings to buy a plot, and even more, if a said person has to build a house on the plot, it is even more difficulty.
Over time, Pakistan has witnessed huge rural-urban migration due to many socioeconomic factors, however, inadequate housing facilities force them to live in slums. These people are the marginalized community that has been ignored for a long time now.
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To help such people, Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme was launched. In the beginning, the goal of building millions of homes was called an overzealous or even was seen as an unrealistic aim by critics of the said housing scheme, but it changed with the entry of Easy Prefabricated Homes (Private) Limited, a Chinese owned prefabricated homes company.
The easy to assemble, environmentally sustainable, and solidly built homes could be exactly the cure to Pakistan’s homelessness problem. Currently, the company is in talks with the Naya Pakistan Housing Authority, and an announcement regarding this could be on the cards very soon in this regard.
Everything leading to the deal
How this company came into contact with the Naya Pakistan Housing scheme is interesting. Huang Daoyoun is the chairman of Henan D.R. Construction, a privately owned company that has become huge around the world. It is famous for its ability to find unique solutions to building problems. This is the company that owns Easy Prefabricated Homes (Private) Limited, the name under which it is registered in Pakistan.
Mr. Huang and PM Imran Khan met through a mutual friend when PM Khan went on an official visit to China in 2018.
After seeing the technology that the company had to offer, the Prime Minister was very impressed. What Henan D.R. was offering in the form of prefabricated homes contrasted with the usual image portrayed. With their advance in technology, Henan D.R. was offering walls made of cold-form steel slabs and reinforced Styrofoam sheets. Thick, sturdy, and as tough as nails, these houses require no bricks and no cement, are easy to assemble, and more importantly, are quick and cheap to assemble as well.
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Earthquake, fire, and most things nature-proofed, these houses came with a 70-year guarantee. The fact that the 2-3 marla house that the Naya Pakistan project needed could be fully prepared within a week was astonishing.
At that time, however, Imran Khan had recently come into power, and importing a huge amount of material would put a huge dent in the country’s balance of payments.
Thus, he offered Mr. Huang to set up their production unit in Pakistan. For a new company to make such a big investment and open a new manufacturing unit in another country is a bold decision. But he agreed.
According to a person who is close to both, Mr. Huang accepted this offer because he was impressed with Mr. Khan. He said that Imran Khan is a sincere person and “speaks from the heart.” With the promise of no bureaucratic red taping and a direct line to the Prime Minister’s office, Henan D.R. arrived in Pakistan. This was all they needed. After coming here, without any government assistance they bought six acres of land in the Faisalabad M3 Industrial Park so they could run operations in a Special Economic Zone.
Since then, they are doing core production in Pakistan, and have even been exporting their materials to Africa, their largest market. At the same time, talks with the Naya Pakistan Housing scheme have been positive, but nothing is final yet.
Settling in Pakistan
Since setting up in Pakistan, a lot of private parties seem to be interested in this technology. This is obvious because they are getting houses made without any bricks, cement, machinery deployment, and with low labor cost, that too in one week’s time. These houses are fully secure, as they are made of reinforced sheets in metal frames that are 9-14 cm thick and 10×5 feet in dimension.
In addition to this, they are fireproof, soundproof, and insulated – with a noticeable six-degree Celsius difference between inside and outside temperatures. The houses are completely moisture-proof because of no bricks and cement used, also, the houses do not have problems such as peeling paint and are not a fire hazard.
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The houses are delivered in refined conditions with the walls painted, lighting, electricity, heating, and plumbing all done.
For Naya Pakistan Housing, the average cost of a house is Rs. 2-2.2 Million. They are 3 marla houses, that have two bedrooms, a washroom, and a living room. What is more impressive from the government’s perspective, these houses were put together in 3 hours. This would mean a lot of cost-saving.
The company’s goal is to make this housing an option to anyone thinking about a 3-5 marla home. Additionally, Low-rise buildings such as hospitals, schools, and barracks can also be made with these materials, and model schools are already being developed for areas like Balochistan.
After eight months of launching their operations, the company is now fully operational and has recently made 3.5-7 marla model houses for Pakistan. Easy Homes is a dynamic and possibly revolutionary change to Pakistan’s housing market. It is a moment of hope for all those people dreaming of owning their own homes.