Pitiable Plight of BPL Senior Citizens:

Pitiable Plight of BPL Senior Citizens: M.V.Ruparelia.




As you may be aware, almost 37% of total number of Senior Citizens belongs to Below Poverty Line category and their life is almost miserable and they need help and support from others.



Government has declared some facilities/financial help for them from time to time but that also does not reach to all eligible Senior Citizens. Many of these Senior Citizens being illiterate/semiliterate and burdened with misery of meeting two ends meet are not aware of these schemes. As per modified eligibility criteria for BPL w.e.f. 1-11-07, all Senior Citizens of 65 and above belonging to a household below poverty line are eligible for Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension and earlier restriction of being destitute is removed. State authorities have not yet started work of including such Senior Citizens in such lists, though more than 3 years has passed to these orders.



Recently, Vice President of India released a Report prepared by Transparency International India (TII)-CMS Corruption Study, 2007, which indicated that BPL Families had to pay Rs 883 crore bribe to avail 11 basic facilities & need based public services in the last one year. Vice President suggested 4 pronged drive to eliminate corruption-i) simplification of procedures; ii) streamlining of information flows; iii) reinventing front end staff and iv) activating civil society groups. 11 Services included in this Report were Public Distribution Scheme; Hospital Services; Senior Secondary School Education; Electricity & Water supply and need based services; National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA); Land Records & Registration; Forest; Housing; Banking and Police Service.



The procedure for inclusion of name in the category of Below Poverty Line is very cumbersome. Planning Commission of India vide their letter dt 4-9-08 have advised that this is done as per Expert Group Method from the large sample survey data on house hold consumer expenditure conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization using the Consumer Price Index of Agricultural Laborers for rural poverty lines and Consumer Index for Industrial Workers for urban poverty lines. All-India poverty line for 2004-05 on the basis of expenditure-consumption data collected from 30 day recall period for all items work out to Rs 356.30 for rural & Rs 538.60 for urban poor. Each State has different figures and all-India figures are weighted average of the state-wise ratios. It is compulsory for getting advantage of various schemes to get included in the list of families below poverty line of the State concerned. This procedure is required to be simplified immediately.



The contribution of Central Government for Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension (IGNOAPS) is Rs 200 per beneficiary p.m. and minimum Rs 200 from the State. Some States are giving more and some are not giving at all. Pension is to be credited, where feasible, in to a Post Office or Public Sector Bank account of the beneficiary for 3 months with permission to withdraw every month only one month’s pension.



Under the revised scheme of IGNOAPS, 1.6 crore Senior Citizens shall be getting benefit. 37% of Senior Citizens are below poverty line and as such about 3.7 crore are required to be covered under this scheme. The present age limit from 65 should be reduced to 60 and condition of inclusion in list of families below poverty line must be removed.



The Ministry of Rural Development has issued instructions to States to grant this megre Pension to those citizens, who are 65 and above and belong to a household below the poverty line, which is decided as per their guidelines for BPL Census, 2002. In these guidelines, 13 socio-economic parameters are prescribed to identify relative position of each family in rural area by giving variable scores from village to village depending upon local conditions for targeting people under Ministry`s Rural BPL Programmes. No such guidelines are issued by Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation for classifying an urban citizen as BPL. 13 socio-economic parameters may be useful to Ministry Of Rural Development for launching a particular scheme in a particular village or for a particular family but in no way can help in deciding the eligibility to pay megre monthly Pension to Senior Citizens of 65 & above having megre income or staying hand to mouth in their last spell of life. How far such house to house survey applying 13 complicated parameters having 4 different scoring can be useful to decide eligibility for monthly Pension to Senior Citizens? There is no necessity of targeting Senior Citizens neither for paying IGNOAPS nor to fix their interse eligibility. More over, such guidelines go on changing for every Five Year Plan Period. We may give one example to consider the impracticality of such guidelines. In the very well developed suburb of Mira Road of Mumbai, there are more than 4 lakhs of citizens having more than 80 thousand Senior Citizens, out of which 50 thousand are above 65 and more than 20 thousand are living below poverty line and pass their last spell of life hand to mouth. The number of all BPL Families, including citizens above 65 for this Area are only 17-seventeen, as advised by Municipal Corporation vide their letter no. ja.kra.manapa/sujayo/7/2009-10 dt 14-8-09. It would be clear from this that eligible Senior Citizens are not classified as belonging to BPL Families and not paid even this megre Pension due to complicated procedures causing corruption at various levels. Considering the poverty lines of each State, a financial income limit per month or per annum should be fixed for paying this megre Pension to Senior Citizens irrespective of their family income, as Senior Citizens staying in joint families and having no income or megre income are not properly looked after by children and not paid any pocket money etc. Proper financial limit for eligibility and for amount of monthly Pension should be fixed by taking into account present economic condition of the Country having more than 1.7 lakh Indians having more than 5 crore worth assets and topping in first few richest persons in the World; GDP; Per Capita Income of Indian Citizen; rates of minimum wages; minimum pay & pension given recently to Central Government employees etc in place of present complicated method of 13 parameters and meager pension of Rs 400 p.m.!!



Monthly Pension of Rs 400 or near about is a mockery of human beings and Human Right Commission must force the Government to keep this Pension sufficiently high to keep the old human beings to survive! Government spends Rs 20000 p.a. for one under trial prisoner and much more for convicts, whereas Senior Citizens, who are fragile and sickly due to ageing, are paid Rs 400 p.m. and many States are not giving any pie!



Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna: Health Insurance cover is provided under this scheme to BPL workers in unorganized sector and their families (up to 5 members) to the extant of Rs.30000 p.a. The beneficiary has to pay only Rs. 30 p.a. as registration fees. Every State has to implement this scheme in a phased manner and cover all their districts by 2012-13. States have to approve Insurance Company/ies in each district and nominate proper Public/Private Hospitals having sufficient facilities as per guidelines. The insurance company shall enroll the beneficiaries. The scheme shall be financed by Central & State governments, as laid down. Smart cards shall be issued to each beneficiary house holds for cashless service in the nominated hospitals. The beneficiaries shall be eligible for coverage of financial costs of inpatient health care services as well as agreed day care procedures not requiring hospitalization, as decided by State Government with Insurance Company. Some basic exclusions are also kept. Limit of Rs 30000 for 5 members of family is again a mockery of human being, seeing the economic progress of the Country and requires to be increased considerably!