Any person with a monthly income less than Tk 30,000 will be eligible to receive a maximum of Tk 15 lakh loan from commercial banks and financial institutions either for buying or constructing an apartment of highest 1,250 square feet, the BB rules stated.

The rules also said that the borrower will repay the loan in 20 years at most through monthly instalments and annual interest rate will be not more than 10 percent.

The BB will give the money to different commercial banks and financial institutions for disbursing as loans under the scheme titled 'Reinvestment Scheme in Housing Sector.'

"The banks will give Tk 100 crore loans in each year for next three years under the scheme," a BB official said.

As per the rules, the borrower can utilise the money for buying or constructing apartments in six city corporation areas and municipal areas of Tongi, Gazipur, Savar and Narayanganj.

However, people working with companies, which have housing loan scheme for their employees, will not get the loan. Besides, the loan is only for those who or their relations (wife/husband and children) do not own any house or apartment in the designated areas.

If a person has already taken housing loans from a bank or financial institution will also not be considered under the scheme.

"Bangladesh Bank will give 67 percent of the loan and rest 33 percent will have to be given by the bank concerned," a BB official said referring to the rules. The BB official also said that only the banks or financial institutions whose volume of classified loan is less than 10 percent of the total outstanding loans would get the central bank money for distribution.

Another source in the BB said that the scheme is specially targeted towards low and middle income people who have very limited scope to get loans from existing schemes of different commercial banks and financial institutions.

"We have estimated that the monthly instalment against the loan will be no more than of a service holder's monthly house rent allowance," he said.

Meanwhile, the BB data shows that all commercial and specialised banks' have disbursed Tk 6,253 crore housing loans till March this year, which is 4.41 percent of the banks' total credit.

Of the loans, different Housing Society and Companies got Tk 1,535 crore and Urban Housing received Tk 4,717 crore.

The BB data illustrates that different nationalised commercial banks handed out Tk 2,591 crore as housing loans while private commercial banks Tk 3,339 crore, foreign commercial banks Tk 94 crore and specialised development banks or institutions Tk 227 crore.