ABSTRACT
INDIA’S NATIONAL POLICY ON ‘SENIOR CITIZEN: A
SOCIOLOGICAL SCANNING
MACHINDRA SAKATE & P.S SALUNKHE
Actually,
post-globalization human societies have been going under number of social
problems on which the discipline of Sociology has been collecting rims of
information to overcome such problems. Aging is also a universal problem and
international efforts made an impact on the implementation of the ‘National
Policy on Older Persons’. The Government of India is also the part of this
policy and workout plans and policies for welfare of the older persons.
Though, biologically aging is an inevitable
stage, sociologically, it consider differently in different societies. In
India, we are all aware about the position of older persons from history to
mythology. The quality and status of aging population of all human societies is
depending on different social factors. In earlier time, joint family was the
best supportive institution where older persons were respected, but now slowly
declining of joint family institution in urban India created problems. In rural
India the situation of older person from unorganized sector and below poverty
line is also worst.
So, the
Government of India announced ‘National Policy on Older’ in the year 1999. It
was a step in the right direction in pursuance of the UN General Assembly
Resolution l47/5 to observe 1999 as ‘International Year of Older Persons and in
keeping with the assurances to older persons contained in the Constitution. The
Central and State governments have made provisions like, pensions, travel
concessions, income tax relief, medical benefit, extra interest on savings, financial
support for homes, Day care centers,
Medical vans, Help line and security etc.
The Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment coordinates programmes to be undertaken by other
Ministries in their relevant areas of support to older persons. The Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment piloted landmark legislation the Maintenance and
Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizen Act 2007 which is being promulgated by
States and Union Territories in stages.
While
considering the India’s national policy on older persons of 2011 and the Senior
Citizen Act 2007, the following objectives are to be followed in this paper-
1) To
access the major objectives set by Government of India in National Policy on
senior citizen 2011 and find out difficulties while implementing such
objectives.
2) To
suggest corrective measures for better implementation of Senior Citizen Act
2007
This paper is mainly depends on secondary
data and ,apart from policy documents on senior citizens and Senior citizen Act
2007, the other library sources are also taken into consideration.
Particularly
in Indian context, It is found that, though the problem of Aging is an
universal, it has some different situation in terms of its population and
multicultural social background so, the problem of Aging has to be consider by
knowing the typical Indian social structure and also known how different
political factors played while solving this problem with measures like policy
and legal provisions ‘National Policy on
Senior Citizens 2011’ has covered major aspects which gives helping hand to
senior citizens, but while considering the overall scenario of Indian structure,
the policy and its objectives unable to give justice to such senior citizens
who belongs to lowest rungs of the society. And the Indian bureaucracy is also
one of the hurdles in policy implementation.
