Pension cuts & declining support leaves India's elderly vulnerable
A recent NITI Aayog report revealed that approximately 78% of India's elderly population lack pension coverage, with nearly 70% relying on their families or relatives for daily sustenance.
- New Delhi - UPDATED: April 9, 2024, 10:23 PM - 2 min read
Pension cuts & declining support leaves India's elderly vulnerable
Representational Image - Flickr
As India prepares to vote for a new government, what have the past ten years of the Narendra Modi government done for the social and financial security of the growing elderly population? What is the reality of the elderly, poor, widows, and disabled?
Modi's 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' also doesn't seem to include the elderly population in India. Even the fare concessions given to senior citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic have not been restored.
These issues have been addressed in the 'Social Security Pensions – Report Card 2014-2024', published by the Financial Accountability Network India (FAN India). Based on government documents and reports, the report indicates that in the past decade of Modi's rule, pension amounts under NSAP for the elderly have remained stagnant since 2011.
Allocations for NSAP have also remained stagnant at around Rs 9,500 crore for the past ten years, with a "massive decline" as a share of the overall budget.
For widows and people with disabilities, the pension amount was raised from Rs 200 to just Rs 300 in 2012.
The report card notes that allocations towards NSAP as a share of the total budget decreased from 0.58% in 2014-15 to a mere 0.2% in the present budget.
“Mind it that the total haircuts given to just the 12 big ticket defaulting corporates were Rs 2.84 lakh crores,” points out the report card by FAN India, a collective of civil society organisations, unions, people’s movements and concerned citizens.
The report card also highlights that for widows and people with disabilities, the pension amount was raised from Rs 200 to just Rs 300 in 2012.
“At a time when Urad dal costs Rs 138/kg, and Mustard oil costs Rs 136/kg, the pension amounts are no more than a joke..” it adds.
Regarding ‘inclusivity’, the report card found that “Stringent eligibility criteria under NSAP result in large-scale exclusion in accessing social security benefits. Its reliance on outdated 2011 SECC data, strict age criteria for women (40-60 years), and extremely high disability level (80% or higher) for enrolment for persons with disabilities excludes crores of people in need of financial assistance.”
A recent NITI Aayog report revealed that approximately 78% of India's elderly population lack pension coverage, with nearly 70% relying on their families or relatives for daily sustenance.
The most disadvantaged are unorganised sector workers who cannot access pension schemes like the Atal Pension Yojana. These schemes are tied to general welfare programs and are not specifically designed for such workers.
In any case, the e-Shram portal for registering unorganised sector workers to " connect them” with various social security schemes has managed to register only 29.48 crore workers so far.
“The budget for the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-Dhan (PM-SYM), a contributory old age scheme for organised sector workers launched in 2019, has declined from Rs 350 crore in 2023-24 to just Rs 177 crore in 2024-25. In reality, the PM SYM has proven ineffective, failing to meet its target of registering ten crore unorganised workers. Between 2019 and 2024, only nearly 50 lakh people have enrolled in the scheme. Between January and July 2023, 21% of the enrolled beneficiaries left the programme,” it said.
According to the India Ageing Report, approximately 60 million elderly individuals in India are categorised as belonging to the "poorest wealth" bracket. Among them, nearly 10 million live without any source of income.
“Despite this, the number of beneficiaries under the old-age scheme has decreased from 2.27 crores in 2012 to 2.21 crore. Overall coverage under the programme has only increased slightly from 2.48 crore in 2012-13 to 2.97 crore in 2023,” says the report card.
While advertisements, posters, and jingles often credit Prime Minister Modi for "providing" benefits to the people, the report highlights that due to insufficient central funding, the states are "spending 5 to 10 times more on social security assistance compared to the Union Government."
The report challenges the Modi government's argument that providing, for example, a non-contributory pension of Rs 3,000 to every elderly person (totalling about Rs 5.36 lakh crore) would be a "freebie" or a financial "burden" on the exchequer. It points out that the same government has granted write-offs amounting to nearly Rs 15 lakh crore to large corporations between 2014-15 and 2022-23.
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