Does PM Modi not care about senior citizens of India?
According to the latest data released by the Election Commission of India, there are nearly 10.774 crore senior citizens (elderly persons above 60 years) in India, including about 55 million females and 52 million males.
By 2026, as per a report released by the United Nations Population Fund and HelpAge India, this number is expected to touch 17.3 crore. Both the share and the size of the elderly population keeps increasing over time. From 5.6 per cent in 1961, the proportion increased to 8.6 per cent in 2011, with 8.2 per cent for males marginally lower than - at 9.0 per cent - for females. As much as 71 per cent of this elderly population resides in rural areas while 29 per cent is residing in urban areas.
Life expectancy at birth during 2009-13 stood at 69.3 years for females as against 65.8 years for males. At the age of 60 years average remaining length of life was found to be about 18 years (16.9 for males and 19.0 for females) and that at age 70 was less than 12 years (10.9 for males and 12.3 for females).
The old-age dependency ratio climbed from 10.9 per cent in 1961 to 14.2 per cent in 2011 for India as a whole. For females and males, the value of the ratio was 14.9 per cent and 13.6 per cent in 2011 and with growing years and practically no opportunities of gainful work for senior citizens, except for politicians, this is surely shooting up unbridled.
While in rural areas, 66 per cent of elderly men and 28 per cent of elderly women are reported to be engaged in some vocation, in the urban areas only 46 per cent of elderly men and about 11 per cent of elderly women are estimated to be working for a livelihood. Considering the fact that most senior citizens above the age of 60 today belong to an era in which majority of their spouses may not have been gainfully working, though engaged as housewives, their lifetime savings and interest earned thereupon by default get reduced to close to half of what it might reflect in their bank balances. The position becomes more difficult for those living in urban areas where the cost of living and maintenance is even higher.
Now let's take the case study of a salaried employee who retired after about 40 years of service in 2012, and invested all of his savings of Rs 40 lakh in a government bank for five years to expect an earning of Rs 35,500 per month approximately (subject to income tax, if and as becoming applicable in any year). Let's assume he wishes to reinvest the same in 2017, but finds he would now get only Rs 26,500 amounting to a clear shortfall of Rs 9,000 per month, when the average prices of all essential and basic items of survival are always on an increase.
For someone, who enjoys no social security cover after retirement, has no pension, no medicare, a drop as high as 25 per cent in regular interest income is much more than a shock. At age 65 in 2017, if this man has to go for a healthcare policy, he can get no such coverage for a decent support for lesser than Rs 60,000 to Rs 70,000 of an annual premium for self and his spouse, when all throughout his service career of four decades he may have diligently paid income tax on hard earnings already.
Now under the current income tax rules, when he can expect a tax deduction for only up to Rs 30,000 invested each year towards health insurance premia for himself and his spouse, he has to shell out the additional non-tax-exempt premia too out of this meagre monthly saving.
It is unfortunate that after 2014, the interests of senior citizens have remained largely ignored. There is not even a single item or commodity for kitchen or the house, in general, the price of which has stayed static at the 2014 level. While the government and even the private sector employees keep on getting compensated to some extent at least through a periodic rationalisation of dearness indices or by way of overall compensation or payscale/DA reviews, no such relief has ever been available to senior citizens who are out of all pensionary benefits or are on their own or in the unorganised sectors of sustaining livelihoods.
The government had started a scheme for deposits of senior citizens at a rate of 9.20 per cent but from July 2014 it was reduced to 8.3 per cent; with a max cap of Rs 15 lakh. This needs to be corrected and the rate revised to at least 12 per cent equal to the one granted to persons entitled to terminal benefits in employment. There have been marginal lollypops like discounted rates of travel fares for air and train travels, but in reality, it is really a very small percentage of the senior citizens who need to travel except in emergencies. The prime minister, himself being a senior citizen, one hopes will understand the plight of nearly 11 per cent of this of his fraternity better and consider the suggestions shared above to ameliorate their weakening financial condition without delay.
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment too should look into these gaps and ensure equitable treatment to the senior citizen population of the country to ensure they are no longer subjected to any such inequalities and discrimination. They too deserve to live a dignified and secured life, without depending on other sections of the society.