Balochistan housing fund diversion could deepen poverty, disaster risks: Report
New Delhi, Aug 11 (IANS) The World Bank has warned that capping housing assistance and redirecting funds from a multi-billion-rupee resilient housing programme for flood-affected people in Pakistan’s Balochistan to infrastructure projects could deepen poverty, increase disaster risks and fuel social tensions, a report has said.
A report published in Dawn highlighted that the World Bank expressed serious concern over the decision to cap housing support and the way issues related to fraud and corruption were being handled.
It said the move had left 119,049 verified and eligible households without identified financing support after housing assistance was capped at 62,966 first-tranche beneficiaries as of June 22, 2026, with subsidy support limited to 97,000 households.
“Based on the socio-economic profile of the eligible household, the risk is not simply that households remain without housing assistance; rather, it is that existing vulnerabilities become mutually reinforcing and deepen over time,” according to the report.
The report further highlighted that 84 per cent of eligible beneficiaries are ultra-poor and vulnerable with 28 per cent earning less than $30 per month and another 26 per cent earning between $31 and $70.
The beneficiary profile also showed that 39 per cent are tenants, 37 per cent are daily-wage labourers and 8 per cent are small farmers.
66,120 exclusion-related grievances had been registered in the project’s grievance management system by the agreed cut-off date, according to the report.
“With the capping of housing support, eligible but excluded households may face a compounding cycle of vulnerability that not only reinforces poverty but increases it, raises disaster risk and undermines long-term recovery and resilience, diminishing the objectives with which the project was initiated,” it said.
It warned that excluding verified beneficiaries could force vulnerable families to divert income from food, healthcare and education towards temporary shelter repairs or resort to debt and sale of productive assets.
–IANS
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