Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana
Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana has been launched in April 2017 to provide Physical Aids and Assisted-living Devices for Senior citizens belonging to BPL category. This is a 100% Central Sector Scheme, to be fully funded and implemented by the Central Government. The scheme has been launched for three years up to 2019-20.
Eligibility
The eligible persons for this scheme are senior citizens from BPL category, suffering from any of the age related disability / infirmity such as low vision, hearing impairment, loss of teeth and locomotor disability. Such persons would be provided assisted-living devices.
List of Assisted-Living Devices
The scheme includes following assisted living devices:
- Walking sticks
- Elbow crutches
- Walkers / Crutches
- Tripods / Quadpods
- Hearing Aids
- Wheelchair
- Artificial Dentures
- Spectacles
The above devices will be distributed free of cost. More than five lakh senior citizens are expected to be benefitted under this scheme. As far as possible, 30% of the beneficiaries will be women. The devices will be provided with free one year maintenance by ALIMCO.
As per the Census of 2011, there are 10.38 crore senior citizens in the country and 5.2% of them suffer from some sort of old age-related disability. It is projected that the number of senior citizens will increase to around 173 million by 2026.
