R K SINHA
No mercy to government employees of Madhya Pradesh who desert their old parents. The way our society neglect old men and women, even parents, this is high time that all the State Governments and the Centre should frame law to punish such people on the line of Madhya Pradesh Government. In Madhya Pradesh a certain amount of those employees who are found guilty of deserting and neglecting their parents would be deducted from their salaries and given to the aged ones. The speed with which old age homes are coming up in India, it appears that old aged people are subject of negligence by their family members.
You also must have noticed that youth is always mentioned since India is a country of young people as 65 percent of our population is below 35 years of age. No doubt we must think for our young population but this does not mean that we should neglect or become indifferent to those who have given their best and contributed to the nation building for 60 years or more.
You leave aside village and small towns, you enquire about the old ones about their income in big cities. You will find that 8 out of ten have no regular income. They are wholly dependent on their family. Since these elderly people are not financially self- sufficient they are object of ridicule and neglect in their own family. If an old couple has three sons they live in rotation but that too comes as a curse for them. None of the sons is ready to keep his parents on permanent basis.
Pension amount of those who retire from government service is good now. If a person retires as section officer of Central Government he gets rupees 40,000/- a month approximately. He also gets benefits of Provident Fund, Gratuity, free medical treatment in government hospital etc. But number of retired government employees is hardly 3 to 4 crores. If you add retired employees of public sector undertakings then the figure would be 5 to 6 crores but all of them don’t get pension. There can be some difference in figure but the condition of those retiring from private sector is getting from bad to worse. Today, even in some government offices and department or for that matter in public sector undertakings, most of recruitments are being made on contract basis; without any provision of provident fund or pension.
The situation is really grim for crores of people working in the unorganized sector. Is anyone concerned about their social security? After they retire at 60, who looks- after for their food, shelter and medical treatment. The old age pension is available for those working in the organized sector. Ninety percent of workers are engaged in unorganized sector.
Modi Government has introduced a good scheme for the people working in the unorganised sector “Atal Pension Scheme”. But the benefit is available for only those who work in unorganised sector. But these people have neither money nor time nor resource to visit banks and offices several times to get the benefit and to prove that they are alive after retirement.
Some big organisations wanted to provide the benefit of this scheme to workers but rules and bylaws are big hurdles. It is more than three years when the Atal Pension Scheme was introduced but the files are still moving from one desk to another in government offices. Government is government whether it is Manmohan Singh Government or Narendra Modi Government. Work is done by the Babus who are assured for their pension so why they should bother about others.
There are approximately 1.5 crore old aged people who live alone. There are some startling figures in this regard. Out of 1.5 crore lonely elderly people three fourths were women, as per the census figure of 2011.
I don’t say that nothing has been done to provide succor to elderly people of the country. In hospitals there are separate queues for elderly patients. In some Government hospitals special units have been set up for the old aged patients. The government has also given some concessions and rebates in income tax. On bank and Post Office deposits the rate of interest is marginally higher for the elderly persons. But something much more is required to be done to mitigate the sufferings of our older generation who have given so much to the society and to the nation.
(The Writer is Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha).