'Minimum & essential standards fixed for c'cial old age homes'

Tamil Nadu government has told the Madras High Court that it has fixed minimum and essential standards for functioning of commercial old age homes and free old age homes run by NGOs with grants from the Centre, as per which all such homes have to register with District Committees headed by the respective District Collectors.
Secretary of the Social Welfare and Nutritious Meal Programme Department, P Sivasankaran, stated this in an Action Taken Report filed yesterday before the first bench, in response to a direction from the High Court.
As per the February 9 Government Order of the department, which came into immediate effect,the Committees have the power to cancel licences of homes and order their closure if they do not follow mimimum standards after shifting inmates to other eligible registered ones.

The GO was in response to a January 11 interim direction of the first bench on a PIL from one S Krishnamurthy who sought a direction to Social Welfare departments of the state and union governments to frame regulations and appoint a regulatory authority to monitor functioning of the homes.
Sivasankaran submitted that as per the GO, a written contract is compulsory between inmates and home authorities, who shall ensure they continue to receive care till the end of their lives. Inmates also have the right to lead a lifestyle consistent with their previous routines, expectations and preferences and satisfies their social, cultural, language, religious and recreational interests and needs.

When the matter came up before the bench of Chief Justice S K Kaul and Justice M M Sundresh yesterday, the petitioner stated the GO was not comprehensive enough in dealing with all issues. At times, if accountability of the home is questioned, food supplied to senior citizens was stopped, he pointed out.

However, the Government Pleader assured the court that if any complaint was received, it too would be addressed by the Social Welfare Officer and monitored in terms of the G.O. And every endeavour made to strictly enforce it.
To find out if any improvement needs to be made to the G.O., the bench permitted persons having interest or stake to give suggestions to the government. Necessary publicity shall be given in this behalfwithin two weeks.

The suggestions can be processed and the picture emerging from it should be sent to the Centre which should make available its comments to get a final picture, four weeksthereafter.
For this purpose, the court impleaded the Ministry of Law and Justice as a party in this case and posted toApril 28for further hearing.