Pakistan’s Apna Ghar housing scheme has approved loans worth Rs. 448 billion, bringing the total close to half a trillion rupees. However, only Rs. 76 billion has been disbursed so far, with around 14,000 applicants receiving financing against 75,198 approved loans.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed banks and government agencies to simplify the housing loan process and make financing easier to access.
Chairing a high-level meeting in Islamabad, the prime minister called for consultations with stakeholders from the housing, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), and agriculture sectors to improve existing lending schemes. He directed relevant ministries, government secretaries and the State Bank of Pakistan to complete consultations by the end of October and submit their recommendations.
The government aims to provide Rs. 700 billion in housing loans for 125,000 residential units this year. Officials told the meeting that application processing time had been reduced to 15 working days, while the number of required documents had fallen from 25 to five.
Sharif directed officials to simplify the submission of required information and help applicants obtain clear property title deeds. He also called for the early completion of recommendations by a committee examining financing for housing developers.
The prime minister urged banks with weak lending performance to improve their results and encouraged those contributing more to priority sectors.
Agricultural lending currently stands at Rs. 1.352 trillion, benefiting 3.455 million people. The government wants to increase agricultural credit to Rs. 1.5 trillion and expand the number of beneficiaries to 4.5 million by June 2027.
In the SME sector, more than 352,000 businesses have received loans totaling Rs. 1.137 trillion. The government aims to raise SME lending to Rs. 1.5 trillion and increase the number of borrowing businesses to 575,000 by June 2027.
Sharif also directed officials to bring inactive Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) warehouses and silos under public-private partnerships to improve storage capacity and protect farmers’ produce.
He praised Allied Bank’s model of providing loans to farmers against produce stored in agricultural warehouses and called for expanding the approach with private-sector participation. He also welcomed the bank’s proposed investment plan for an SME park.
The meeting was attended by federal ministers, the prime minister’s advisers, senior officials and executives from several banks, including JS Bank, Askari Bank, Allied Bank, Habib Metro Bank, Bank of Khyber and MCB Islamic Bank.
