Global Economic Recession and Indian
Senior Citizens
DR P Vyasamoorthy
My son has got the Red Slip last week. I dont know how to
pull on
My Interest earnings have gone down but inflation is
increasing day by day
Dependencies are never ending. Our daughter has joined us
leaving her husband abroad — My responsibilities never seem to end
Such are groaning scenarios among senior citizens in any
park or in Day Care centers or among morning walkers.. Here are a couple of
suggestions to handle this issue.
Present Economic crisis around the world has resulted in many youngsters losing
lucrative jobs abroad or having been forced to accept lower salaries elsewhere.
This impacts senior citizens back at home. They have to tighten their belts and
get used to living frugally or make unexpected sacrifices. To tackle this
central government may come up with some kind of Senior Citizens Income
generation schemes or self employment avenues or re-employ retired people with
a view to rehabilitate them.
Recently SBI has sent me a letter (quoting my PPF account) announcing higher
rates of Interest for Fixed Deposits (11%) for 1000 days. It is an indirect
hint that I transfer some funds in PPF yielding only 8% to new FD at higher
rates. How about the SBI sending a simple letter asking “Do you want the
balance in your PPF account to be kept as Special FD at higher rates and if
the answer is yes transfer the money to FD and reverse it to PPF after
1000 days? This is just a matter of a few clicks on the computer, if properly
programmed. Banks want liquidity; seniors have some money to invest and they would
like to have better interest. This auto-sweep facility may be applied in the
case of senior citizens without asking. Who will not do with a little more
money?
The same idea may be applied to other FDs in Banks too
whenever better and short term schemes are brought out. Banks should be
pro-active to help senior citizen customers and it they who would appreciate
such facilities best.
Popularize Reverse Mortgage schemes and make them simple to avail. There are a
number of problems in the actual implementation and a lot of vagueness and
discretion is allowed at each scheme operators level. Streamlining reverse
mortgage schemes will be a boon to senior who are waiting for the dust to
settle down.
Health Insurance makes sense only when large number of subscribers is involved.
BSNL offers free accident insurance to all subscribers for Rs 50K per
subscriber. Why not something similar —
Health Insurance scheme where premiums are affordable and millions are covered
in some automatic manner. Instead of lowering Income Tax Rates, Govt may offer
free insurance for the premium amount of IT they are prepared to
‘sacrifice’! This will ensure a large subscriber base and many companies may
come up with new schemes.
In the case of BPL seniors, sudden demise of the earning
member (son/DIL/daughter etc) may worsen the financial position. Compulsory
Life insurance schemes (partly funded by Govt — premium paid) for all employed
or salaried persons may be so devised that part of the Proceeds (death claims) go
to senior citizens instead of entire money going only to the nominee.