Economic Highlights
New
Delhi, 29 September 2012
Pension & Social Security
TIME FOR ‘INCLUSIVE AGEING’
By Shivaji Sarkar
If only three top international agencies thought
alike, life would be far better, particularly for the elderly. Sadly, this is
not the case. On the one hand, the United Nations Fund for Population (UNFPA)
says that proper income security and health care to the aged alone can ensure
world development. It calls upon national governments to universalise pension
and other social security benefits to all the elderly, above 60 years of age,
which would number over a billion worldwide and 315 million in India by 2050.
On the other hand, this is contrary to the position held
by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The two are
pushing national governments to do away with these benefits and leave it to the
corporate dealing in insurance to provide these to those, who would be able to
pay for it during their productive years.
The UNFPA notes that the lack of pension is causing
extreme miseries to the elderly, who are mistreated by their families, denied
medical care and even shelter. Commenting on the western economic crisis, UNFPA
states: “There is no solid evidence that population ageing per se has undermined
economic development or that countries do not have sufficient resources to
ensure pensions and health care of an elderly population”.
In its report “Ageing
in the 21st Century: A Celebration and Challenge,” it disagrees
with the view that social benefits should be sacrificed at the altar of fiscal
deficit even as corporate profits and the insurance sector soars. It may be
noted that insurance business of Aegon-Religare type is gobbling up deposits of
poor people without giving them any benefit. There are official estimates that
over Rs one lakh crore of insurers have forfeited to these types of companies
in India
alone.
Prof Moonir Alam of Institute of Economic Growth
(IEG), who was involved in UNFPA studies, opines that Governments must have a political
will to support the elderly, whose numbers are swelling and their conditions
becoming abysmal. While it has the means to support social security benefits, one finds that the government can raise service taxes on the poor rail
travellers on the silliest pretext. There has to be a policy to support the
poor from the vagaries of the market. Today, even yield on the deposits put in
banks by aged persons suffer erosion because of low interest rates and tax
deducted at source on money, on which tax has already been paid.
Social security to the aged is becoming a crucial
societal issue. Besides, as per various Indian Supreme Court rulings pension is
a deferred wage. It means the parts of the wages that remain unpaid during the
productive working life are paid after retirement.
Strangely, while the top echelon of the bureaucracy
and politicians arrange for pension for themselves, it is denied to the needy—even
to those workers who were getting it till 2004. Moreover, the New Pension
Scheme of 2004 is extremely loaded in favour of the large corporate as the
yields are supposed to come from the stock market trading, a dicey proposal. In
the US
about 25 per cent of the elderly people have lost billions of dollars to
pension funds since 2007. In India,
since 2011 the policy is causing distress and depression to 90 million elderly,
majority of them illiterate or semi-literate. Their number is to swell to 315
million by 2050, which is about 20 per cent of the population.
According to a series of surveys conducted by the UNFPA,
Institute for Social and Economic Change, IEG and Tata Institute of Social
Sciences seven States – Kerala, Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, Orissa, West Bengal,
Punjab and Himachal Pradesh – which have the highest population of the aged
people, about 75 per cent live in rural areas. Of these 48 per cent are women
and 55 per cent widows. Nearly three out five single older women are very poor
and two out three rural elderly are fully dependent. Additionally, there is an
increasing proportion of the 80 plus and here too women are more pronounced.
The statistics also state that around one-fifth of the elderly live alone or
with spouse only since the past 20 years and here too women are more in
numbers.
Around 80 per cent of the male and three per cent of
women illiterates in 80 plus age group have to do menial jobs to sustain
themselves. With 70 per cent of the elderly being illiterate in the Indian
context, their earning capacity during working years has been limited and they
have to depend upon some productive labour work for their survival.
This apart, they suffer from many disabilities and health problems, notes the Helpage
India. Even schemes such as Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (National Health
Insurance scheme) benefits are not available to them as it limits the numbers
to three children and their parents. Those above the age of 60 are excluded by
the families for the sake of children.
The organisation, which helps the elderly, says that
the demographic dividend that India
now has is to be lost by 2040. A mere 16 million are covered by Rs 200 a month
pension under the Indira Gandhi Pension Scheme. Even this is not universal as bureaucrats
manage to even deny this. For example, an aged widow, Amima Maity, from
Murshidabad in West Bengal, living a life of
penury in Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, where lakhs of widows reside, is denied the
measly pension by the District Collector on grounds that “she is from another State”.
This apart, over 43 per cent of the elderly suffer
domestic violence. About 53 per cent are mistreated by their sons and not
daughters-in-law as is the common perception! The Government must consider
raising the minimum pension to Rs 1000 a month, for the elderly to live with
some dignity.
In Nepal,
the UNFPA states that the government has ensured pension to all those above the
age of 70 years. So has done China
but implementation has its own problems. Among BRICS countries Brazil and South Africa have social pension
and health insurance. Thus, why can’t India do it? In fact, here the old
age or widow pension schemes do not reach over one-fifth of the beneficiaries
and procedures are tricky, the UNFPA studies have found.
India has recognised the
issues during the NDA rule in 1999 and formulated National Policy for the Older
Persons. But thereafter it lacked policy focus to address the related issues
and income security of older persons. It also suffered from serious lack of
coordination among multiple agencies and time-bound results.
The UNFPA calls for setting up of National Commission
for Elderly to ensure inclusion ageing in all national development policies and
programmes, national humanitarian response and for a change of mindset and
societal attitudes. The primary aim of all these programmes should be to ensure
income security through a pension scheme and consider the elderly as an
essential part of the society so that demographic dividend is not barred by the
age factor. Can India
pay heed? ---- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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