Vidhan sabha committee recommends closure of Punjab Housefed

Chandigarh: Calling it a "white elephant", the Punjab vidhan sabha committee on co-operation and allied activities has recommended the closure of Punjab Housefed. In its third report for the 2024-25 financial year, which was tabled in the recently held budget session, the committee recommended that Housefed employees be shifted to another wing of the co-operation department.

The committee, led by AAP MLA Gurpreet Singh Banawali , noted in its report: "The committee feels that Housefed is proving to be a white elephant. It has been redundant since 2013, and there is no recovery by it. The committee recommends that the employees of Housefed be shifted to another institution of the co-operation department and that Housefed be closed, so that it does not put a financial burden on the govt."

According to the Housefed website, "There is no advancement of loan since Sept 2013." The website describes Housefed's history as "The Punjab State Federation of Cooperative House Building Societies Ltd., known as ‘HOUSEFED', was established on November 17, 1970, with the objective to provide financial assistance to individuals for the construction of houses in rural and urban areas in the state of Punjab. Any individual desirous of taking a housing loan is enrolled as a member of a cooperative house building society already existing in that area. At the time of its inception, with a membership of 33 cooperative house building societies, the federation, manned by three staff members, could not start functioning until August 1973. During the year 1973-74, Rs 4.47 lakh was sanctioned to cooperative house building societies. Now it has disbursed Rs 1,20,554.45 lakh as of 31 March 2017 through 343 cooperative house building societies for the construction of 1,24,779 houses. There are 244 staff members in HQ and 17 district-level offices. Besides advancing loans, the federation has also undertaken the construction work of multi-storeyed group housing complexes and has successfully completed two complexes at Mohali, two at Ludhiana, and one at Bathinda, consisting of 888 flats and the development of 495 plots of various sizes so far. All the flats and plots have been allotted, and possession to its allottees has been given. Housefed constructed 96 flats at S.B.S Nagar, Phase-1 Ludhiana, 84 flats at Jalandhar, 912 flats at Banur, 580 flats at Sector 79, Mohali, and 96 flats at Kapurthala have been completed. (There is no advancement of loan since Sept 2013)."