NEW DELHI: Taking cognisance of the growing need to support the elderlies in the country, the Government of India has taken a monumental step towards addressing the challenges and problems they face, through the country's first Pan-India toll-free helpline – 14567 — called 'Elder Line', which provides free information and guidance on pension issues, legal issues, extends emotional support, and even intervenes on the field in cases of abuse, and rescues homeless elderly.
The intent of 'Elder Line' is to provide all senior citizens, or their well-wishers, with ONE platform across the country to connect and share their concerns, get information and guidance on problems that they face on a day-to-day basis, without having to struggle for it.
One of the callers, for instance, was looking for a hospital for his mother-in-law with Parkinson and was bedridden with health issues. She got Covid positive and had to be shifted to a Covid ward in the ICU. After a few days, the hospital insisted that she be taken back home even though she was positive. Unable to understand this, the caller reached out to Elder Line for guidance. The Elder Line team immediately connected with a private chain of hotels and found one such facility where she could be shifted temporarily.
Elder Line is a culmination of the initiative of Tata Trusts, India's oldest philanthropy, which took through its partner, Vijayavahini Charitable Foundation, in 2017, in collaboration with the Government of Telangana in Hyderabad, to help the elderlies in the city. Tata Trusts has been and continues to be engaged in strategic philanthropy, to create an impact that is deep, wide and irreversible in millions of lives in the communities that we serve, distinguished by our scale and depth of interventions on issues of national significance.
Tata Trusts and NSE Foundation, as technical partners, are jointly supporting the Ministry in operationalizing Elder Line. To date, 17 states have already opened the Elder line for their respective geographies and others are in the pipeline to be opened. In the last 4 months alone, over 2 lakh calls have been received, and over 30,000 seniors have already been serviced. Of these, nearly 40% of calls were related to guidance required in the vaccine and queries related to it and nearly 23% of calls were related to pension.
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