From health benefits to tax rebates, elders gain much

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 28

In a welcome break from past, senior citizens walked away with the largest piece of cake in Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget today with Prime Minister Narendra Modi thumping his desk through the announcement of pro-elderly proposals. The only other category that got mentioned more than the elders in today’s Budget was women.

From social security nets to health benefits and tax rebates, Jaitley gave a gift of empowerment to India’s 10.5 crore elderly beginning his offerings with a heart-warming reference that drew applause from MPs across party lines, “Ours is a society that venerates its elders…”

Among the slew of measures to benefit the elderly (anyone above 60 years), the FM announced the setting up of a Senior Citizens Welfare Fund using unclaimed deposits of Rs 3,000 crore in the People’s Provident Fund and another Rs 6000 crore in the EPF corpus. 

He also announced a new scheme to provide physical aids and assisted living devices for senior citizens below poverty line.

This scheme will cover a large chunk of seniors, considering a large section of them lives in rural areas and is below the poverty line. A majority of them also suffer from age related disabilities – for which the assisted devices scheme will come to their aid.

The social security scheme “Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Bima Yojana” announced today in the Budget will also benefit the elderly as it will cover natural and accident death risk of Rs 2 lakh for a meager premium of Rs 330 per year or less than one rupee per day for all aged 18 to 50.

Direct benefits to elders include a series of tax reliefs such as – deduction of health insurance premium for senior citizens increased from Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000.

Care has also been taken to cover the elderly above 80 years who are not covered by health insurance. These seniors will be allowed a deduction of Rs 30,000 towards medical expenditure.