THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It has been nearly a year since the Assembly Committee on Senior Citizens had recommended that special squads be formed to take urgent action on complaints filed on the basis of Kerala Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Rules, 2007. The squads have still not been formed. “The plan was to train probationary officers to function as squad members,” a top Social Justice Department official said. “However, we could not make much progress as the Social Justice Department was caught up in the bifurcation process, in creating a women and child department out of the parent department,” a top Social Justice Department official said.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, in an interaction with non-resident doctors during the Loka Kerala Sabha in January, had referred to creation of the volunteer group to visit the homes of elders daily. At that point, top Social Justice officials said the volunteer group concept was an improvement on the ‘squad’ concept. The project to prepare a ‘Geriatric Register’ in each panchayats, too, had not taken off. The register, which will be a comprehensive one with relevant details like medical history of senior citizens and dependant addresses, was supposed to be kept in the police station and government offices in the panchayat.
The police stations had also been asked to set up a helpline number for senior citizens. The creation of a Geriatric Register was a directive issued by the DGP way back in 2010 after rules were framed for Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007. “It was also felt that the squad or the volunteer group could make use of the ‘geriatric register’,” the Social Justice official said. In fact, the Committee, some seven years after the DGP circular, too had ordered that police stations should prepare a list of senior citizens living within their jurisdiction and also that two officers from a station should make at least two visits a month to homes where senior citizens live. Both the DGP’s order, and also the recommendation of the higher Assembly Committee have been ignored.
