Government to bring new national policy on senior citizens
A new national policy on senior citizens is in the draft stages with the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, government officials said, adding that some details of it were discussed on Monday (May 2, 2025) at a meeting of the National Council for Senior Citizens, chaired by Social Justice Minister Virendra Kumar.
The Social Justice Ministry said discussions focused on how the draft policy should 'reflect the demographic realities' of India as it heads into the future. A statement from the Ministry said population projections estimated that 20% of the country would be senior citizens by 2047.
According to the 2011 Census, senior citizens accounted for 8.23% of the nation's population at the time. According to the government's projections, they will account for about 12.16% of the country's population in 2026. The government on Wednesday (May 4, 2025) said the forthcoming Census' reference period for a headcount would be March of 2027.
A government official told The Hindu, 'The policy is in a draft stage now. Suggestions have already come in from relevant stakeholders and some of these suggestions were put forth at the meeting on Wednesday.' They added that one of the suggestions was to consider that India will have a higher proportion of senior citizens by 2047.
This was the fourth meeting of the National Council for Senior Citizens, the government said in its statement.
Digital inclusion
At the meeting, the council also deliberated on 'digital inclusion' of senior citizens, the government said. It further discussed institutionalising NGOs and senior citizen associations in policy formulation, implementation, and feedback mechanisms.
Deliberations also went into areas of trying to establish a grievance redress mechanism to address elder abuse and neglect; implementing minimum standards for 'old age homes' and senior care institutions; and 'promoting community engagement and intergenerational bonding'.
The council also undertook a detailed review of the progress under the Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana (RVY) and Integrated Programme for Senior Citizens (IPSrC), Senior Citizen Portal in terms of enhancing quality and post-distribution follow-up of assisted living devices, the statement added.
The government said that under the Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana, more than five lakh senior citizens had been given 'free assisted living devices'. Through the IPSrC, the Ministry is currently supporting 708 NGOs that are operating 'continuous care homes, physiotherapy centres, old age homes, and mobile medicare units'.
These schemes are covered under the Social Justice Ministry's umbrella programme known as 'National Action Plan for Welfare of Senior Citizens'. This National Action Plan was formulated and put out in April 2020.
The National Policy on Older Persons was first announced by the Government of India in 1999. Following that a Commission headed by Mohini Giri had in 2011 put out a National Policy for Senior Citizens, which was in place till the National Action Plan of the Union government came out in April 2020.
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