SANGUEM: Eighty-five-year-old Bhagirathi Gaonkar from Carla village, in Sanguem, worn out by the passage of time, is unable to walk even a few steps, since she is bent at the waist and can’t stand upright. She lives in a crumbling mud house with her husband who is aged, blind and unable to speak. Since their movement his hindered with age, this elderly couple survives on whatever their relatives and neighbours bring to their doorsteps.
All that she needs is for the bank to show heart and ensure that he gets her pension.
Bhagirathi even finds it difficult even to climb and descend the four steps leading to her house since the steps are high. She goes through the motions of washing clothes and cooking with great difficulty. She is lucky to have a tap water outside her door step.
Bhagirathi was granted a pension of Rs 2,000 per month, by the Social Welfare Department under the Dayanand Social Security Scheme. But the tragedy is she cannot go to the bank, to withdraw the money, since the bank insists that she come to the bank in person. Due to her inability and lack of strength to go to the bank, for the past one and half years, she has not availed of the pension.
“I have great trouble going to the bank. They are not releasing the pension without going there. They want me or someone from the house to go there. How is this possible? Hence I did not fetch it,” Bhagirathi rues.
“The rice in my house is over. We get ration at the ration shop. But I cannot go to the ration shop to fetch the grain," she adds.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha election, Election Staff were sent to the doorsteps of the senior citizens and the sick to help them to vote. Bhagirathi too voted in the election. But the government which talks of Antodaya, cant it reach out to the Gramin Mitra and ask them to deliver the pension and ration to the elderly such as Bhagirathi?
Social Activist Azim Shaikh questioned, “They have to go to the bank to put their thumb impression and withdraw their pension. But some elderly people are in such a state, that they are unable to go to the bank. It appears their pension comes and then goes back to the government treasury. Who will bring and give them the pension?"
"There are many senior citizens living in remote and hilly corners of villages. At this age they can’t even walk. They are over 80 years. The bank should make some provisions to deliver their pension at home,” Shaikh said.
Social Activist Sanket Bhandari asked, “If we see such type of cases, where is our government? If the withdrawal from her pension is not taking place, the bank should have at least inquired. Government should have verified, why this person is not drawing the pension.”
The government giving pension is a good initiative. But if the pension does not reach the poor and least in society, what is the use?
The government boasts of having appointed Gramin Mitra to reach out to the last person. But as long as people like Bhagirathi are alive will these Gramin Mitras reach out to them?