Older Generation needs Social Security
Last night, I was exchanging Diwali greeting with a friend who is a very senior advocate in the Supreme Court. Perhaps not more than 5-6 advocates may be there in SC who are senior to him. My friend is of my age, may be around 64-65. He is a God-fearing and very helpful man. He never gave importance to money over service. He has helped man-many in his life time and even now he is ready to help anyone beyond his capacity.
Till last May, he was hail & hearty but unfortunately his health deteriorated in May. He got himself checked & doctors detected that he is suffering from the cancer. Immediately his treatment started by Chromopathy method. Chromopathy is not only very painful to the patient, it is subjected upon, but it is very costly too. It is so costly that even my friend, who had a good income from his practice, is feeling heat of the cost of treatment as his income has dried up due to illness. When I asked about social security by SC for senior advocates/para-legals, his voice was full of pain. He said, “Srivastavaji, India does not have any social security for any of its sons/daughters who have done their bit for the nation.”
If my friend, who is so well of, is feeling pinch of medical plus living cost due to not having current income, what must be happening to crores of old people who are not as fortunate as my friend is.
In the context of the above story, I want to give my thoughts & feeling for the condition of old generation in the present situation. I want to talk our present status in changing atmosphere. In the changing scenario of Indian family life; where fashion of nucleus family is catching up, where old people, Mom-Dad, Grandparents and other older family members are drifting to the fringe; we, the old people of India, need some drastic change in day to day care & social security.
No blame to young generation, which is as responsible or as irresponsible, as wise or as fool, as caring or as careless as we were in our young age. It is not their fault that family scenario is changing. It is today’s need. The combined family phenomenon would wane away day by day. New requirement, new service pattern, more & more urbanization, different quality of life, high education cost, westernized living, use of modern family equipment etc would force any man to go for nucleolus family. I don’t want to go into “Bagwan” type story or the incidents where old parents are thrown in street because such incident would happen all the time. Such incident are not dependent on economy or time constraint.
I don’t mean that our offspring don’t want to keep us with them. It also does not mean that they don’t want to afford our day to day living & medical cost, nor it means that they don’t want to sit with their parents/grandparents. It simply means, changing scenario would not allow them to do all this as the please. The are always willing to do service to oldies but question is can they do it?
We know that some kind of 1000-2000 are being given in the name of old-age pension. We don’t need alum or charity but some concrete social security as some west country provide. If such service is introduced, not only it will give peace of mind to old generation but it will give peace to active generation too because devoid from anxiety of old parents/old generation care, active generation can work more smoothly. Plus this kind of service may reduce the greed for having lots of assets in name of old age care.
This also means that government has to initiate some kind of social security service for its older generation in the pattern of west countries. True, very true, if such service is started now, it is not going to give benefit to this log of old people nor it would benefit the generation who have already crossed 45-50. But if this scheme is started now, the generation which is entering in twenties/thirties would reap the harvest when they are in Sixties.
I have no idea that how this service can be started. I also don’t know the financial burden of this scheme. I have no idea of western social service. But I know, we oldies need better care at state cost because we have finished our services for the nation and now it is nation’s turn to take care of us. Simply older Generation needs Social Security.
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True. In this direction, my endeavour has been to chalk out and implement a chain of senior-care living care-homes for senior citizens with dementia ,funding their treatment, living expenses through a dedicated Trust .
Government of India has plans on the anvil. Finance Mnistry should clear them .
Wishing India a return to the era of Sravan Kumar , Rama, SriKrishna in regard to right treatment & care of elders.
Jai hind!!!
Old values or way of life diminished without proper replacement by the Established Organisations or Govt.sharing the burden.There are Old Age Home established at many places but they are meant for affluent people costing between Rs.50,000-Rs.100,000 per month apart from lump sum deposit of huge amount.I have heard that there are some Philanthrophist who also run such chartable institutions but they are few and far between.
After abolition of Joint family,State needs to step in as applicable in West.After paying taxes through out one’s life,when income dries up,State does not play any effective role which is is lamentable.
That is why this post is written. I was full of pain after the talk.