Sindh Completes One Million Houses for Flood Victims
file photograph of the 2022 floods in Sindh.
KARACHI: The Sindh government has completed more than one million houses for families hit by the floods, marking a milestone its leaders describe as the world’s largest housing reconstruction effort.
Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah announced the figure at a ceremony at the Chief Minister’s House on Tuesday, where Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, representatives of development partners and beneficiary families were also present.
The Sindh Peoples Housing for Flood Affectees programme has so far completed 1,007,111 climate-resilient houses. “This is not just a number. It represents one million families who now have a roof over their heads, security for their children and hope for a better future,” the chief minister said.
Families built their own homes
What sets the programme apart is how the houses were built. Instead of handing the work to contractors, the government put families at the centre of reconstruction, letting them build their own homes. Every house was geo-tagged, monitored digitally and independently verified at each stage of construction — managed, officials said, by a team of just 40 people working through a digital system.
Khairpur leads the district tally with 167,739 completed houses, followed by Naushahro Feroze with 90,865, Jacobabad with 83,037, Dadu with 79,492 and Qambar Shahdadkot with 74,898.
Homes in women’s names
Women have been placed at the centre of the initiative, with houses registered in their names. “A house registered in a woman’s name is more than property; it is security, dignity and economic independence,” Mr Shah said. At the ceremony, beneficiary families shared their stories of losing their homes in the 2022 floods and rebuilding their lives through the programme.
After the floods, Sindh set out to rebuild 2.1 million houses for more than 15 million people across 23 districts — so the million completed so far is roughly half the job. The World Bank has committed $500 million to the programme and the Sindh government $179 million, with the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank and the European Investment Bank also supporting it. The next phase, worth nearly $1 billion in combined investment, will take clean drinking water, sanitation and drainage to around 4,800 villages. Mr Bhutto-Zardari told the ceremony that Sindh had set a world record, passing Nepal’s 700,000 houses.
