Dadi-Dada Foundation welcomes govt's move to give Rs 1000 financial aid to poor senior citizens

Dadi-Dada Foundation, which works for the welfare of senior citizens, on Thursday lauded the government's decision of providing a financial aid of Rs 1,000 to poor senior citizens "in the times of extreme crisis".

The government announced an economic package worth Rs 1.7 lakh crore to provide relief to the poor, workers, and other needy sections while the country is facing lockdown due to the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus.

In her announcement, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said senior citizens, poor widows and divyang will get an ex-gratia amount of Rs 1,000 in two tranches over the next three months.

he scheme will benefit three crore people of our society.

"We laud government's announcement approving the scheme to give an ex-gratia amount of Rs 1,000 to three crore poor senior citizen widows and divyang for a period of 3 months in times of extreme crisis," Director Dadi-Dada Foundation Muni Shankar Pandey said.

The country is passing through a very challenging period. "Our senior citizens are very prone to the highly contagious virus which has already taken so many lives of citizens," the director said.

"We appeal to the senior citizens to avail the releif which is being provided to them, stay safe and follow the government's safety guidelines," Pandey said.

The foundation's volunteers educate senior citizens on their rights besides helping them in availing necessarily livelihood services such as legal aid, arranging fooding and lodging and other basic amenities.

Recently, the foundation alongwith a group of parliamentarians held a round table in the national capital to create awareness among senior citizens about the schemes being run by the governments at various levels.