Senior citizens honoured

Kathmandu : The Senior Citizens Society has feted five senior citizens organizing at an event here Friday. Former Minister for Finance Bharat Mohan Adhikari honoured the elderly as Chanda Kumari Joshi, Krishna Bahadur Bista, Bir Bahadur Chauhan, Jagannath Aryal and Shiva Ram Khadka. Former Minister Adhikari spoke of the need to increase the allowance for the senior citizens in proportionate to the increasing living cost of the people in the country.
Currently, the senior citizens of 60 and above are been getting monthly Rs 2,000 as the social security allowance. Society’s Chairperson Chiranjivi Kandel argued that the skills, knowledge and experience of the senior citizens should be given due credit and value.
The Senior Citizens Act, 2063 mandates that the senior citizens benefit from 50 per cent discount scheme in the transport and healthcare. The senior citizens have been demanding the elderly allowance to be Rs 5,000 per month given the inflation.
The then Prime Minister Manmohan Adhikari had put in place the provision of allowance-Rs 100- for the senior citizens since 1994. Back then, it was Rs 100 a month. The latest census in 2011 puts the population of senior citizens (aged 60 and above) at 2.5 million, which is 8.13 per cent of the total population.
Until recent year, senior citizens above 70 years were entitled to receive Rs 2,000 in monthly social security allowance. But the previous government last January reviewed the age ceiling and decided to lower it for the social security allowance, bringing it down from 70 years to 65 years owing to the increase in average life expectancy of Nepali citizens. RSS