BANGALORE: The Nightingales Regional Resource and Training Centre and National Institute of Social Defence organised a regional consultation on minimum standards and regulatory mechanism for age care organisations in city on Friday.
Speaking after inaugurating the two days programme, former additional law secretary K D Deshpande said as a result of globalisation, many inter-caste and inter-religion marriages have increased. This has resulted in negligence towards elderly people. Old age homes help such ignored people live a happy life.
Speaking on the occasion, V A Machakanur, director, Department for Empowerment of Differently Abled and Senior Citizens, said, “According to the Senior Citizens’ Welfare Act, there should be one old age home in every district and Karnataka is well ahead of that. There are currently 56 old age homes run with assistance from the Central government and 36 run by NGOs with help from state government. These NGOs receive only Rs 2 lakh funds, which is very low to run the old age homes. He further pointed out that running an old age home in an urban area was different from rural zones as the requirements of people differ.
“There is an alarming increase in the need of old age homes and we are aiming to bridge the gap between the older and younger generations, other than providing facilities such as elders’ helpline, home health services, centre for aging,” said Radha S Murthy , trustee.