Is there any hope for the 100 million elderly Indians?

• Regulars who meet Dattatray Rajderkar (86) and his wife Nanda (79) at the Sanjay Gandhi National park on their morning walks often remark on their health. Though Nanda needs help climbing steps, the senior couple is fit and unaffected by lifestyle diseases common among peers. Yet every remark on their good health, makes them sigh. “Its best if we breathe our last till we are hale and hearty like this,” says Rajderkar.
  
  Nanda recounts, “After our daughter Manjusha was married in 1991, she moved to Toronto. She has two children and a job which keeps her as busy as her husband who works for the government there. Our son's death in a motorcycle accident in 1994 left us increasingly lonely. But it can't be helped,” says the septuagenarian. “At our age who wouldn't?” 
  
  There are also safety concerns. “Every day you open the paper and you see reports of macabre attacks on the elderly by thieves. Once we go back from our walk we rarely open the door,” points out Rajderkar.
  
  Manjusha had invited them to live with her in 2000. “She was suggesting that we shift there permanently but we found it difficult to adjust to the cold climate. Also, which Indian parents go and live with daughters?”
  
  While Manjusha flies down once-a-year to be with her parents, their relatives in Pune drop in once in a while.

• Ezmi Pereira is only 69, but her gnarled face and bent over posture makes her look much older. Until five years ago, she washed utensils at a private nursing home. “I was in the job for nearly 25 years. That and my boys, working for  caterers, ensured we didn't die of hunger.”
  
  Her husband who worked in a garage was an alcoholic. His drinking and the regular fights left her bitter. “We would often have to go pick him up from the streets around the BDD chawl. When he died, my sons and I didn't even weep.”
  
  After the clinic she worked for folded up, she began going to flats in the Worli neighbourhood as domestic help. A rasping cough and regular bouts of fever have now left her too weak to work. Her elder son is now married and has two school-going daughters. The one-room BBD chawl home is too small for this nuclear family. Ezmi sleeps in the lobby beside the drum where the family stores water. “I feel too weak to even get down the stairs. Most of the time I am lying on my bedding out of the house.”
  
  Her daughter-in-law feels she may have TB and could infect her or her children and does not allow her to come in to even watch TV. “She keeps saying I must go on my own to the Sewri hospital and seek treatment but I am scared.”
  
  Also, there is the question of money. “My younger one Walter went to the Gulf. He says he sends money for me, but my daughter-in-law says they get nothing,” she complained as she gathered her frock and sat down, seized by a coughing fit.

• Shridev Yadav, 70, puts the battered aluminium bucket of water down and stops to catch his breath. The red-checked gamcha wrapped around his waist is wet with his sweat and water from washing auto-rickshaws. He washes 62 autorickshaws each day from 3 am to 10:30 am and between 5 to 6:30 in the evening, across the Mahakali Caves neighbourhood in Andheri.
  
  This mill worker who found himself jobless when the mill shut down, decided to head back to his native place in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh. “My own younger brother had usurped my land which I'd bought with my sweat and toil.” Dejected with the local authorities colluding with his  brother and tired of the prolonged litigation, he came back to the city.
  
  He sold the autorickshaw he owned to arrange money for his three daughters' weddings. Left with nothing, he began washing vehicles in early 2003. His only son, a charas addict, refuses to work. With one more daughter to wed, Yadav prays everyday that he shouldn't die before he has “completed his duty.”

Needs of the elderly
The Rajderkars, Periera and Yadav are not isolated cases facing problems like finance, health, loneliness, abuse and neglect. The number of people above 60 is estimated to be 100 million (10 crore) in 2011, which is nearly 9% of the total population. With life spans rising by 60% in the last six decades, India is now home to second largest population of senior citizens.

In fact a study has shown how out of the 10 crore senior citizens, 66% are poor, 90% have no social or health security. Seventeen per cent are lonely and 35% are subjected to abuse of various sorts.

A sharp increase in both the 60-69 and the 80+ age-group, has meant that society has a challenge to address their needs, says Sailesh Mishra, Founder President, Silver Inning Foundation. “Given how globalisation, improved access to healthcare and lifestyle are affecting this demographic, it is time for civil society and the government to rethink intervention strategies to address the needs of senior citizens.” Mishra was speaking to DNA at the inaugural ceremony of 'Celebrating Age' - a two-days expo on active retirement at World Trade Centre, Cuffe Parade.

“We are trying to find ways of addressing some of these concerns through this expo,” he said adding, “It’s sad that though the National Policy of Older Persons (NPOP) was formulated in 1999, it still hasn't been implemented due to lack of political will.”

Mishra points out how, nearly one third of senior citizens slip into BPL category every year, on account of health care expenses and hospitalisation. “Irrespective of where they are placed vis-a-vis the poverty line, all elderly should be offered good health insurance.”

Indira Gandhi national old age pension scheme offers a pittance of Rs200 per senior citizen (60+) from the central government funds, with a recommendation that an equal contribution be made by the concerned state government. State government contribution ranges from nothing (as in AP) to Rs1,000 (as in Delhi).

Here too corruption and tardy procedural delays ensure that the money does not reach the intended target.

Executive Director, International Longevity Centre India Chapter, Anjali Raje felt the increasing instance of crimes against the elderly was of great concern. “Our study on Crimes against the Elderly in Pune, Mumbai and Delhi showed how property crimes top the list of crimes in all the cities, followed by chain snatching and physical assault. Though Delhi tops in crimes against elderly, smaller cities like Pune are fast catching up.”