Low cost aprtments in pipeline for Mirpur

A move is underway to build some 1,320 low-cost flats for low- and middle-income groups in the capital under public-private partnership (PPP).

The proposed apartments, equipped with all modern amenities, will be built by creating a satellite town on 5 acres of land of the National Housing Authority (NHA) at Section-9 in Mirpur.

A feasibility study was also conducted to implement the project using a new technology -- Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) -- instead of the existing civil construction technology to keep their construction cost relatively low.

As per the project concept, the government will provide the lands as capital investment while the private sector will bear the construction cost.

The concept of implementing the project under PPP by using the ICF technology came on the table following the submission of an unsolicited offer by two private firms --Godek International and Novel Building Technology.

When the project proposal was put forward to the PPP Office of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), it examined the proposal and finally placed it to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for its approval.

The Cabinet body gave its nod to the proposal in principle to implement it under PPP initiative, but asked the NHA to form an expert committee to examine the technical viability of the project through using the ICF technology since it is totally new in the country.

Following the instruction, the Housing and Public Works Ministry has appointed a private firm, "Earnest and Young", as its consultant to carry out the technical feasibility of the project.

After feasibility, the consultant in a report said the IFC technology was useful for building low-cost apartments, but skilled and efficient manpower was needed to apply such technology which is absent in the country.

"Particularly, the ICF technology has been a new one in the Indian subcontinent and it is still in the developers' experimental stage. So, this technology shouldn't be mandatory for the project while inviting tender for it," the consultant said.

Official sources said the Cabinet Economic Affairs committee rejected a Housing and Public Works Ministry's proposal to invite tender in a short-cut process and asked the ministry to follow the full existing process of the Public Procurement Act 2006. Now it is expected that the Housing and Public Works Ministry will invite the tender soon.