Year on, Trilokpur old-age home lying unused

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, December 4

An old-age home constructed by the Sirmaur district administration at Trilokpur in 2018 has not been used so far. It was set up with the assistance of the Balasundari Temple Trust and financial support from the Department of Language, Art and Culture but it ran into rough weather following “objections from public representatives”.

The Himachal High Court had directed the state government to set up old-age homes, and daycare centres and provide shelter and clothing to the elderly.

The issue of the Trilokpur centre not being put to use has put a question mark on the authorities concerned. It not being used for the elderly has also attracted audit objections as several crores of rupees have been spent on its construction and providing facilities.

The Department of Social Justice and Empowerment is supposed to run old-age homes.

The home is a three-storey building with 45 rooms having facilities such as a lift, a dispensary and an entertainment room. It was planned to be used both as a daycare unit and a shelter home for the elderly.

It has been set up on two bighas of government land and funds for it were sanctioned more than 10 years ago. A memorandum of understanding was also signed with a philanthropist, who had evinced interest in running it free of cost. An ambulance has also been donated for the centre and two elderly women from Nahan have been identified as its first inhabitants.

According to a PIL filed in the High Court, Himachal has the fourth highest number of senior citizens in the country, as per the data released by the UN Population Fund and the Union Ministry of Social Justice in 2011. Despite this, the state lacks an adequate number of old-age homes. According to basic demographics, Himachal has 7 lakh persons aged 60 years or above, which constitutes 10.2 per cent of its total population. This is higher than the national average of 8.6 per cent.