LAHORE: Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif chaired the 99th meeting of the governing body of Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency (PHATA) which approved a surplus budget of Rs34.73 billion (for PHATA) for the current financial year.

Receipts are estimated to be at Rs17bn, while expenditures are likely to be Rs13.55bn. The chief minister approved Apni Chhat – Apna Ghar programme, an was briefed that so far 544,000 people have registered themselves on the scheme’s portal and 280,000 applications were received to build houses, whereas there were more than 76,000 draft applications.

She sought a plan from PHATA authorities to complete the housing project with private sector’s partnership, and permitted them to sign an agreement in this regard.

Ms Sharif directed the officials to expedite the process of verifying credentials of the applicants and accorded approval to upgrade the scale of PHATA data entry operators, besides the recruitment of civil sub-engineers under PHATA Services Regulation 2004.

She decided in principle to link the approval of PHATA budget to its governing body instead of the provincial cabinet and allowed refunds to the applicants of earlier housing schemes who could not get elected in the balloting process.

The chief minister directed the authorities to ensure staff hiring through a dedicated portal and decide the approval of pending housing schemes on a case-to-case basis.—Staff Reporter