International day being marked today: KP government asked to implement Senior Citizens Act

PESHAWAR: Senior citizens on Monday asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to implement the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Senior Citizens Act 2014 in letter and spirit as the International Day of Older Persons is being observed today.

The older people from Peshawar renewed the demand from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to implement the KP Senior Citizens Act and commitments made with them by the previous and current Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf KP government.

“We (senior citizens) are still waiting for the implementation of the Senior Citizens Act even after five years of the enactment of the law,” said Banat Khan, an old citizen from Peshawar. He added the senior citizens were very happy when they learnt that the government would provide financial assistance to the deserving ones, but the government failed to implement the law and honour the commitments.

As per the Senior Citizens Act, he explained, the government had promised to set up separate counters and medical wards at hospitals and give concession in treatment and medicine charges, but to no avail.

Farhad Khan, another senior citizen from Peshawar, said that they did not have access to free and quality health care services. However, he claimed, the government had promised that all older people of the province will get Sehat Insaf Card, but they were still deprived of the cards to receive free treatment.

He said a person suffered from multiple health issues in the old age that needed proper treatment. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government passed the Senior Citizens Act, 2014 to promote and protect the rights of older people. The law has several provisions for older people including, financial support, separate counters, separate wards and concession in medical and medicine charges.

However, the act has not been implemented in letter and spirit. As per the act, every senior citizen on completion of 60 years of age will get a senior citizen card, but not a single senior citizen card has been issued so far. The government needs to ensure the implementation of the act so that the senior citizens can live a happy life. As per the act the meeting of “Senior Citizen Welfare Council” should be held quarterly. However, only four meetings have been organised so far as the majority of the council members did not show up. Surprisingly, the government despite its tall claims did not allocate funds for senior citizens in the current 2019-2020 budget for the implementation of the act.

Also, no funds have been allocated for financial assistance of older people. However, an official said that the Social Welfare Directorate Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has received over 8,00,000 senior citizens forms for getting the senior citizens cards, but to date, no card has been issued.

As per the Community Research and Development Organisation, there are over 10 million senior citizens who constitute more than 7 percent of the total population of the country. The figure is estimated to reach 45 million by 2050.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the third most populous province in the country as the number of individuals aged over 60 years of age in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is estimated to be 3.5 million.