The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Speakers at a seminar in Dhaka yesterday called for a national policy to provide housing to the poor section people through collaborative efforts of the government, private developers and banks.

They said that the housing sector now contributes about 12 per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP). Its contribution could be about 25 per cent of the GDP and the national economy could also benefit immensely because the construction sector involved the production and use of as many as 200 items through backward linkage, they said.

The seminar was organised by 'Gharbari', a magazine in collaboration with the Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh, several of its member organisations and the Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd at the National Press Club.

Presided over by Alamgir Mohiuddin, Editor, the Naya Diganta, the seminar was moderated by 'Gharbari' Chief Editor, Ershad Majumder and addressed by Abdul Qayyum, Chairman, National Housing Authority, Tanvirul Huq Prodhan, general secretary, REHAB, Habibur Rahman of Islami Bank Bangladesh, Fazal M Kamal, senior journalist, Mostafa Kamal Majumder, Editor, The New Nation, Fazlul Bari, of the Daily Inqilab and Rafiq Hasan of the Daily Star among others.

The speakers felt that the market of houses of the affluent section of the society has already saturated and the housing sector should now expand to district towns, other growth centres and grow vertically instead of horizontally keeping in view the acute scarcity of land in the country.

They said that poor people were content with 250 square-feet housing units for each family and can afford to buy such units provided there are institutional credit facilities without collateral available to help them repay loans in 20 to 25 years.

Rehab members said that the government should come forward by donating land or making land available at cheap prices to build houses for low-income group people. Rehab members could help the process by cutting drastically slashing profit margin. The banks should offer mortgage loans against such housing units each costing around Taka three lakh.

In this context the speakers lauded the earmarking of Taka 300 crore by the Bangladesh Bank for extension as housing loans. But this would benefit only affluent people. Something is needed to be done for the poor section of the people, they added.

Ershad Majumder announced the introduction of some awards for quality reporting on the housing situation in Bangladesh.