13m Bangladeshis get senior citizen status today

The government is going to give around 13 million older people, aged 60 years or above, senior citizen status, which will entitle them to different privileges. President M Abdul Hamid will announce the status at a function at Osmani Memorial Auditorium in Dhaka on Thursday, marking the International Day of Older Persons. The senior citizens will get different services and facilities including health, residence and transport at lower costs and on a priority basis. The government on November 17, 2013, approved the draft of the National Policy on Older Persons determining the age of older people at 60 years. ‘Many older people have to face neglect. No work has been done for them at the government level before,’ the Ministry of Social Welfare’s Joint Secretary Md Hossain Mollah said on Wednesday. ‘That’s why the government wants to do something for them.’ He, however, said a programme began in 1996 under which 1.24 million elderly people were given a monthly allowance of Tk 100 each. The joint secretary said geriatric medicine department would be opened in 90 big hospitals to treat different old-age ailments including arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. ‘The hospitals will be given Tk 100,000 each. They will arrange different corners, beds and medicines at lower charges for the older people with the money,’ he added, according to bdnews24.com.