THE BAHRAIN government has allocated BD300 million ($795 million) this year for housing projects that will be built as part of developments in the Northern Town, Hidd and Sitra.

The projects will be funded from government coffers and by the $10-billion Gulf Fund, said Housing Minister Bassem Al Hamer.

Elaborating on the projects, the minister said: “The project in the Northern Town is expected to take six to seven years to complete and will have 70,000 homes built. We are also building 25,000 to 30,000 homes in Hidd and 6,000 homes in East Sitra.”

He indicated that the country is unlikely to meet its five-year deadline to clear its waiting list for government homes.

“I do think it will take longer than the planned five years, but we are on the right track,” Al Hamer said.

There are currently more than 50,000 families on the housing waiting list, and MPs recently came up with a 12-point plan to speed up the handover of public housing and improve the system for calculating low-interest housing loans.

“We are aware that there is a long waiting list for housing and we are working on it,” said Al Hamer.

“The five-year plan has already been initiated and has been approved by the Cabinet. In fact, we are currently hitting a record number of housing projects.”

Southern Governor Shaikh Abdulla bin Rashid Al Khalifa stressed the need for infrastructure development in the governorate to accommodate the growing number of residents, which is due to the growing population and migration of people to the south from other areas.

Shaikh Abdulla said plans were in the pipeline to redesign the roads network to separate commercial and residential developments.

“We want to design roads that will separate the sectors and make things run more smoothly.”

He also said they were looking into solving overcrowded labour accommodations in the governorate.