Increasing Support for Pension 
Parishad’s Demands

COMMUNICATION

In recent months the demand for pensions with dignity for all elderly citizens has gathered immense support in India. In the first week of March thousands of elderly citizens from all over the country will be coming to Delhi to strengthen this demand based on the mobilisation effort of the Pension Parishad, an organisation which is leading this exercise.

To sum-up its demands, the Pension Parishad has urged for setting up a system of pensions which will provide one-half of the legal minimum wage to all elderly people in the country except those who are already receiving a higher pension or who are in the category of income-tax payers. (However, once an elderly person leaves this income group due to deteriorating health or other reasons, then this person will also qualify for pension.) In practical terms, at present-day prices, this means a pension of about Rs 2000 per month to about 80 to 100 million people.

All told, this will amount to an annual financial commitment which is about two to three per cent of the GDP. Such a level of pensions has been acceptable to several developing countries which have opted for universal non-contributing schemes.

Several creative ways of raising resources for such a laudable objective as universal pensions can be found and should be found. If raising such resources contributes to reducing the existing huge and alarming inequalities in the economy, this is all the more welcome.

It is an increasingly accepted principle that the burden of such universal schemes should not be placed on the weaker sections in the form of contributions sought from them. It is equally accepted that pension should not be at the cost of any other welfare benefit, and that pension for the poor should not mean forced retirement from any modest livelihood they may have.

Seventyfive per cent of India’s nearly 10 crore elderly people live in villages where in many vast areas among the weaker sections the depen-dence on migrant labour has been increasing. This has contributed to the loneliness, marginali-sation and in many cases pauperisation of elderly people over vast rural areas.

In this and other contexts the demands raised by the Pension Parishad should be treated with the urgency these clearly deserve.

Bharat Dogra
C-27 Raksha Kunj,
Paschim Vihar,
New Delhi-110063
Tel: 011-25255303