CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has brought out a fresh GO last week, revising minimum and essential standards for old age homes run by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), the first bench of Madras High Court was informed on Monday.
When a PIL from S Krishnamurthy of T Nagar, praying for a direction to the authorities to frame regulations and appoint a regulatory authority to monitor the functioning of senior citzen homes within a time frame, came up before Chief Justice SK Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan, Government Pleader MK Subramanian told the judges that 30 suggestions given by persons having interest in the field have been incorporated in the new GO issued by the Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme on November 23.
In all, 57 suggestions had been received from the interested persons, which included the petitioner, the union government and the State Social Welfare director and only 30 were found to be relevant. The GO would be implemented with immediate effect, he submitted.
Expressing satisfaction,the petitioner, however, suggested that there should be a sincere endeavour to inspect the existing homes to ensure that they are compliant and efforts made to locate the unregistered homes and they should be visited for consequences of non-registration.
The GP assured the bench that on both the aspects, serious effort would be made. Appreciating the constructive role of the State government and the counsel for the State and Central governments and the petitioner in taking up the issue, the bench closed the PIL.
The November 23 GO followed the earlier GO dated February 9 last, which had been rejected by the petitioner and the bench on the ground that it was not comprehensive enough to deal with all issues.
At times, if accountability of the home was questioned, food supplied to senior citizens was stopped and they were harassed, petitioner had alleged.