Across Pakistan’s biggest cities, Defence Housing Authorities (DHAs) have turned military welfare into a premier urban real-estate enterprise.
Originally framed as housing for veterans, DHAs today shape premium neighbourhoods and city expansion, with military boards at the helm and prime land increasingly marketed to civilian buyers at market rates.
DHA Karachi, administered from the Clifton Cantonment, now extends beyond its historic core through projects like DHA City “Indus Hills,” advertised as “affordable living” yet pitched squarely as an investment product.
Lahore tells a similar story. A cooperative society founded in 1975 was converted into the Defence Housing Authority in 1999, formalising military control and ushering in large-scale, gated urbanisation under an executive and governing body dominated by defence officials.
In Karachi, the most dramatic land story has unfolded on the city’s outskirts. In 2019, Pakistan’s Supreme Court accepted Bahria Town Karachi’s Rs 460 billion settlement after finding that thousands of acres in Malir were illegally acquired, an episode that spotlighted how mega developers piggyback on state land regimes and cantonment authorities to create exclusive enclaves.
Karachi, Lahore, and Gwadar: cities shaped by defence housing
The Navy’s footprint in this political economy is both institutional and commercial. It’s Bahria Foundation, formally a Pakistan Navy-run conglomerate with arms in estates, maritime works and education, illustrates how service “welfare” structures double as diversified business groups.
In Gwadar, “Naval Anchorage Gwadar,” promoted as a Pakistan Navy Benevolent Association welfare project, brings the Navy directly into residential development at the country’s most strategic port.
Critics argue that when cantonment-linked authorities broker prime urban land for officer allotments and investor sales, they crowd out inclusive planning and deepen housing unaffordability in adjoining districts.
Karachi’s DHA expansions have spurred speculative land values far beyond cantonment boundaries, while Lahore’s DHA phases have repeatedly set the city’s luxury price benchmarks.
Luxury for a few, housing shortage for many
For contrast, official Indian sources publicly stress state-led affordability and transparency as policy goals. New Delhi’s Ministry of External Affairs has also flagged concerns about opaque, strategic land projects tied to CPEC, whose nodes include Gwadar, calling them “illegal, illegitimate and unacceptable” where they impinge on India’s sovereignty.
On housing delivery at home, the Government of India releases record large-scale sanction and completion numbers under PMAY-Urban 2.0 (over 120 lakh sanctioned, 94 lakh delivered), alongside routine sanction orders published online, an explicit policy push toward affordability rather than speculative premium enclaves.
In Karachi, Lahore and Gwadar, Pakistan’s defence-linked housing has become a goldmine, financially successful for institutions and developers, but socially costly when premium enclaves outpace public housing and citywide affordability.
The longer urban land remains tilted toward cantonment authorities and service-run ventures, the steeper Pakistan’s climb toward equitable housing becomes.