Why Social Security for elders need your support

Indian tradition has always emphasized the need to serve the elderly and provide them with love and unstinted care.  However with the decline of the joint family structure in our society, we are witnessing the fading away of this belief.   Fueled by urbanization and shrinking living cities in urban areas, the joint family can no longer afford the space to sustain itself. As a result, senior citizens are finding themselves living away from their families and having to fend for themselves. The general increase in longevity also means that they have to face living lonely lives for longer number of years. 

  The present generation, beset with pressures of increasing expenses in face of rising costs and their own aspirations to live upwardly mobile lives, often consider the medical and special care of their parents and grandparents a drain on their resources and a liability for them Naturally, the elderly are facing several problems like societal, health as well as financial insecurity. This has compelled majority of the elderly to rely on their savings or their PF and gratuity, whose value is decreasing day-by-day in the face of inflation.   In the absence of effective and adequate social security measures from governments for elders it has become imperative that citizens and society raise their voice and demand that the senior citizens should be given social security that they need to survive and live a life of dignity in their later years.  A top priority is the building of higher number of old age homes staffed by trained care givers and equipped with medical facilities and making them available to all seniors at subsidized costs Free medical coverage not only at government hospitals but also in private clinics and hospitals need to be made available through a medical insurance scheme to be funded by the government. At the very least, increased amount of old age pension must be provided to all senior citizens, and not only to those living below poverty line (BPL).  For these measures to come into force, you as an enlightened citizen must place these before your local legislators so the government acts to put these in place and honor the needs of the generation that has served us all.

Any effort made in this direction would help in meeting the Constitutional duty i.e., Article 41 of Directive Principles of State Policy having specific relevance of Old Age Social Security. According  to it,  “the  state  shall,  inside  the  limits  of  its  financial  capacity  and development, make effective facility for securing the right to work, to learning and to public  support  in  case  of  joblessness,  old  age,  illness  and  disablement  and  in other  circumstances  of  undeserved  neediness.”  It  makes  the  Government  to  fulfill  the mandates  of  global  agreements  linked to  the  social  security  of which India is signatory, as well.