Inaugurating the Conference Dr. Rajaiah said, Government of Telangana is committed to the needs of the elderly and is going to implement the Rs 1000/- pension, will give high priority for providing healthcare to elders, will frame stringent punishment against elder abuse. The Government will look into the policy of the central government with regard to the Aged and will adopt and fine tune it to our needs, he added.
Delivering the keynote address on the occasion, Prof. Muhammad Yunus said, there should not be anything like retirement, one should have the option to work till the last day. The word 'retire' has to be retired. He said, a retired person should positively take the phase as a phase without boundaries. You have to reinvent yourself and do something you love. Reorientation is the need of the hour after retirement and not a sense of helplessness, despondency and seclusion. He advised the elders not to work in isolation, but to join the youth, so that experience of the elders and innovation of the younger generation can produce wonders. He exhorted the senior citizens by saying "have a coalition of experience and innovation to create a new world."
Talking about the birth of Grameena bank, Mr Yunus said, the terrible economic situation in Bangladesh and the exploitation and harassment of poor women by money lenders made me to think of doing something for them. Started off by lending small amounts from my savings, but as the borrowers' numbers grew, I had to approach a local bank, who were reluctant initially but after lot of convincing and against my guarantee they started lending. As the number of borrowers grew there too, they started refusing. That's when I thought of starting a bank. Grameena bank owned by the borrowers themselves, was started in 1983 to give tiny loans to poor women, at a time when the word microfinance didn't exist in the dictionary. Today, looking back I wish, I named it as Nanofinance and not microfinance. The idea of this bank is to address the problems of these poor women and not to make profit. The profits generated is ploughed back to create more facilities. The repayments to the bank is as high as 98% and the bank is never short of money. Today the savings with the bank is $1.5 billion. The people associated with the bank are illiterate, therefore from the profits the bank earned, we educated their children, so that their parents are the last generation of illiterates in their families. Later the bank extended education loans to these children for higher education. But these kids had no jobs after completing their education, that's when we encouraged them to become entrepreneurs and extended loans. However this didn't go very far as not many such companies could turnaround, besides the pressure of repayments of the loans taken for the company, education loans taken earlier and the loans taken by their mothers was burdensome for the borrowers. That's when we came forward with the concept of Social Business Concern. Where in we welcome great ideas for business from educated youth and the bank becomes a partner by financing the business idea. Once the business is successful, they have to just return the money invested by the bank. This has encouraged a new breed of entrepreneurs who are making a mark.
Mr. Yunus said, the bank introduced pension fund to address the needs of the members during their advanced age. The members had to deposit the same amount month after month for ten years and the bank repaid with a matching contribution. Today virtually all the account holders have pension account. Another aspect, which made us take another new initiative was adressing the healthcare needs of the members. 'Poor people and poor health are synonymous.' Several young and active members died at an young age while conceiving a baby. The bank started health insurance with members contributing $4 a year to cover their entire family for all healthcare services, with a Doctor being available in their village. However, we found the limitation of retaining doctors in villages, as they wanted to be back in Dhaka. To overcome this the Bank started a medical college to train doctors to do the work we wanted them to do. Prevalence of old age related cataract made us start a eye care hospital in a rural area. We do 10000 cataracts a year. The hospital became breakeven in 4 years. We now have 3 eye care hospitals and the fourth one is under construction. India's Aurobindo eye hospital is assisting us in this mission.
Addressing questions from the media, Mr Yunus said, Governments should remain cheer leaders and refrain from run microfinance companies, as the moment government get involved, politics will ruin the MFI. He desired special regulations for MFIs and the recent regulations by the Govt of India, he said are in the right direction to strengthen the MFI industry. He said, the ownership and objective of a MFI is critical, owners with profit motives and bad intentions can wreck the company. The intention should be to help the poor and alleviate poverty. To another question he said, we are assisting in running a MFI in Kerala and are willing to replicate if invited anywhere else. He said, we have six branches in New York city with 20000 members. Several branches across US are functional, he said.
Indian Perspective:
India’s population of 60 years and above is 103 million, constituting 7 percent of the total population. This number would progressively increase to 341 million by 2050 throwing up many new challenges including the Governments being forced to look into age of retirement from formal sector.
India announced National Policy of Older Persons in 1999, to commemorate the International Year of Older Persons. The Government of India constituted a committee in 2010 to review the policy with four non official members besides Government representatives. This committee submitted a revised policy “National Policy on Senior Citizens 2011” which is being reviewed by the inter-ministerial committee.
The Government has constituted a National Council of Older Persons thrice since the formulation of the policy in 1999 headed by the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India. The committee is the highest level advisory committee to advise the Ministry on issues concerning elderly persons and for monitoring the implementation of the National Policy.
The Government of India is a signatory to the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing 2002. This political declaration is a commitment to makes sure that Governments would have policy and programmes in place to promote and ensure that quality of life of senior citizens.
Issues of older persons in majority of the countries of the world, barring well developed countries, including India, particularly developing and under developed countries is lack of income/social security, access to health and living arrangements. In India, the Government of India announced increase in old age pension for those living below poverty line and the coverage is not full as many older persons are yet to get pensions. Access to healthcare remains a bigger challenge and majority of the population are vulnerable to extreme poverty if they fall severely ill or suffer long term or debilitating diseases.
Elder abuse and neglect is another challenge. Many parents are abandoned by their children and the Government of India, in 2007, brought out a landmark legislation, “The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.” The challenge has assumed significance as the number of family members has diminished, longevity is increasing, youth are migrating within the country and many pursue career abroad leaving the parents to fend for themselves.
If the Government of India earmarks adequate funding under the Five Year Plans for making sure that older persons are looked after by providing essential food and shelter besides healthcare, the vulnerability can be minimised and abuse and neglect can be controlled.
