The government, despite being a signatory in the United Nations conference to provide benefits to an important segment of our society, has persistently ignored and almost shelved the proposed bill wanting enactment since 2006.
A spokesman of Senior Citizens Foundation of Pakistan DHA and Cantt Chapter Lahore expressed these view here on Tuesday. He said time and again efforts have been made to push the bill, but the previous government and now the interim have both ignored the requests for the earliest enactment to provide facilities for senior citizens that constitute now almost over eight million in Pakistan, thus terming it least important.
According to him, The Senior Citizens Bill has been pending with the government for the last eight years. It has been tossed around from one department to another, between the parliamentary committees and finally now resting in the Prime Minister's Office for Cabinet approval without any fruitful result for the last more than 18 months. The pending bill contains a framework for welfare of senior citizens, including better health facilities, old age benefits and financial assistance.
Poor healthcare for the senior citizens is one of the most important issues, as expensive medication, their unavailability, separate counters and even separate wards in hospitals for greater care of senior citizens are some of the matters that need immediate attention.
"It is most unfortunate that senior citizens, a great asset and important segment of any nation, has been totally ignored, leaving them at the mercy of rising inflation, unbearable cost of living, expensive medication and hospitalisation, beyond reach cost of travel and dwindling incomes. The Senior citizens are dismayed at no response and concern on the part of the government," he added.
He urged the Prime Minister to act quickly to enact the Senior Citizens Bill to institutionalise arrangements for the public welfare, control exorbitant increase in prices of articles of common use and effective corrective action through price regulation and financial compensation particularly for fixed income groups, in travel, healthcare and by doing away with withholding taxes on utilities, etc.
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