DEVENDRA GAONKAR
VALPOI: On Friday, December 1, Sattari Taluka Senior Citizens held a meeting with Valpoi Municipal Council Chairperson Parvin Shaikh to reiterate their demand for a senior citizens office.
In fact, according to the senior citizens, they have been making this demand repeatedly with the municipal council for the past ten years and that the municipality has been giving them high hopes and empty promises, without taking any concrete action.
They point out that without an office for senior citizens they are not able to conduct meetings and discuss the benefit of the government schemes. Besides, they also face several problems when people come to make the senior citizens cards, because they do not have any office.
Altogether there are 3,000 senior citizens in the taluka, out of which 16 are in the educating committee.
We don’t have the office and because of this taluka senior citizens are not able to take the benefit of government schemes. I conduct meetings of senior citizens in my house, but it is useless and we do not get any benefits, says the President of Sattari Senior Citizens Kutbodin Khan.
He informed that would make a representation to the Health Minister and submit a memorandum regarding the office and other issues and problems faced by senior citizens.
The ex Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar had promised us that he would allocate an office in Valpoi town. But we have yet to get an office and have recently met the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who said he too was a senior citizen and he would provide us with an office soon, Secretary of Sattari Taluka senior citizens Haron Shah said.
For the past ten years, the Valpoi Municipal Council has been giving us tall promises but are not fulfilling their promises.
As per the Central Government scheme, we are supposed to get a carom board, TV, volley ball and newspapers, but we do not have any office to keep these things and so we are demand that the government provide us with an office soon, a senior citizen Kanta Gaonkar said.
