Future of Old Times

Source: The Hindu

Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since independence from around 32 years to 70 years.
Over the same period, the fertility rate has crashed from about 6 children per woman to 2 children, liberating women from the shackles of repeated child-bearing & child care.
The share of the elderly in India's population, close to 9% in 2011, is growing fast & may reach 18% by 2036, as per National Commission on population.
If India is to ensure a decent quality of life for the elderly shortly, planning & providing for it must begin today.

Recent work on mental health among the elderly in India sheds new light on their dire predicament.
Among persons aged 60 & above, 30% to 50% had symptoms that make them likely to be depressed.
Depression symptoms are higher in women than men & rise sharply with age.
In most cases, depression remains undiagnosed & untreated.
Depression is strongly correlated with poverty, poor health & loneliness.
Among the elderly living alone, 74% had symptoms that would classify them as mildly depressed on Geriatric Depression Scale.
The hardships of old age are not related to poverty alone, but cash helps.
Cash can help to cope with many health issues and sometimes to avoid loneliness.
The 1st step towards a dignified life for the elderly is to protect them from destitution and deprivations.
This is the reason, old-age pensions are a vital part of social security systems around the world.
Under the National Social Assistance Programme(NSAP), administered by Rural Ministry, India has important pension schemes for the elderly, widowed women, disabled persons etc.
The eligibility for NSAP is restricted to (BPL) families.
Many states have enhanced the coverage & amount of social security pensions beyond NSAP norms using their funds.
Tamil Nadu has been a pioneer in the field of social security.

Restricting the social benefits to BPL families has not worked well as there are huge exclusion errors in the BPL visits.
In the case of old-age pensions, targeting is not a good idea.

Targeting tends to be based on household rather than individual indicators.

A widow / elderly person may experience major deprivations even in a well-off household.
A pension can help them to avoid extreme dependence on relatives who may/may not take good care of them.
Targeting tends to involve complicated formalities like the submission of BPL certificates & other documents.
The formalities can be particularly forbidding for elderly persons with low incomes/little change who are in greatest need of a pension.
The eligible persons who had been left out of pension recipients were found to be much poorer than the pension recipients.
Even when lists of left-out, likely-eligible persons were submitted, very few were approved for pension.
Many officials have absorbed the idea that their job is to save the government money by making sure that no ineligible person qualifies by mistake.
For instance, in Tamil Nadu, if an applicant has an able-bodied son in the city, they may be disqualified, regardless of whether they get any support from the son.
Eligibility can even be self-declared, with the burden of time-bound verification being placed on local administration.

The proposed move from targeted to near-universal pensions is not particularly new.
It requires larger pension budgets, but additional expenditure is easy to justify.
India's social assistance schemes have low budgets & make a big difference to a large number of people.
In TN, social security pensions typically ₹1000 per month, are targeted & cover about a third of elderly persons, widowed women, at a cost of ₹4,000 crores per annum.
Instead, 20% were to be excluded & the rest eligible by default, the cost would rise to ₹10,000 crores.
That would be a modest price to pay to ensure a modicum of economic security for everyone.

The NSAP budget this year is just ₹9,652 crore-more /less the same as 10 years ago in money terms, much lower in real terms. this is not even 0.05% of India's GDP.
Social security pensions are just the first step towards a dignified life for the elderly.
They also need other support & facilities like healthcare, disability aids, assistance with daily tasks, recreation opportunities & good social life.

For Prelims: NSAP budget, Pensions, Life expectancy

For Mains: Critically analyse the budget constraints to the pensions in India (250 words)

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