If you are superannuated from your job, then you get gratuity, provident fund and maybe a pension. But your pension is given only if you have been employed at the same place for the last ten years or more. In India, you are superannuated at 58 years. And after that, you are due to a pension every month. But.......
Central government employees get the highest salary and so their pension is also the highest in India, from rupees nine thousand upto one lakh, fifty thousand per month. Wow! Just imagine what their salary would have been. State government employees are the next well paid pensioners, including BEST employees,(and how they boast about it), and private workforce employees like me are the lowest on the pension scale. Hardly in 4 figures. My pension is so little that I am almost ashamed to proclaim it, it wouldn't pay one visit to my diabeteologist, forget paying for the medical tests that someone who is superannuated has to undergo, in our dotage.
Beside the renumeration discrepancy, between government employees and others, the pensioner has to visit the pension center or the EPFO (employees provident fund organisation) at Bandra east, every year, or the pension is not granted into that person's account. It is to prove that you are alive and well and deserving the pension, or it goes to the spouse, or it is supposed to go to any minor children, which is hardly a possibility, unless the pensioner has died on the job, after 10 years, that is.
And so, it was time to visit the EPFO. To access the Bandra east office, I had to walk along the skywalk from the station. I had to dodge my way among the crowd, all rushing along in both directions, at different speeds. The view on either side of the Bandra east skywalk, is something that our prime minister, the shiv sena, the chief minister, should all observe. It is the dirtiest, most polluted area, with tinshed slums, built upto 4 storeys, hard to believe, but they should be seen to be believed. scores of children of all age groups loitering in the plastic strewn, garbage covered ground along the train tracks, rats running around, goats and hens and stray dogs too. Forget Mahul, this area is worse, because these slums are thriving, their families are growing, and they flourish on hawking goods along the skywalk, begging, or running tiny shops along the tin shed slums. Where are their toilets? Where are their schools? How many have TB or are drug addicts? Which water do they drink? I request the Mirror channel and Faye D'souza, to do an eyeopener in this urban area too. These slums are happy as they can beg easily, travel easily in the locals and so..........
As I walked along the skywalk, the area on one side is a huge open sewer, with garbage and rubble dumped on one side and cultivated land along the other, irrigated with the sewer water obviously. The other side of the skywalk is a main road, with lots of traffic, and lots of tin shed slums, with blue plastic roofs, lots of open gutters along the road, and lots of barefoot pedestrians. Shops sell cheap food, cheap clothes, cheap everything. On the skywalk, these slum dwellers hawk mobile covers, bags, toys, belts, wallets, head phones. If Mr. Waris Pathan has his way, Byculla will soon replicate Bandra east. Already, the Khada Parsi statue vicinity is an open slum, after this very old monument has been renovated and been granted an A grade heritage status. How is it that Mr. Pathan has sooo much empathy for the displaced slum dwellers in Mahul, but he tries his worst, and his goons too try their worst, to terrorise ordinary citizens near his Byculla office?
Towards the end of the skywalk, posh HDIC towers glass facade looks imposing, and then is the SRA (slum rehabilitation authority) with a very congested concrete building, the residents of which have thrown garbage out onto their lower roofs, a sad reminder that people do not care for their surroundings unless they are educated. The end of the skywalk opens onto the Small Causes Court and lots of advocates and lawyers standing around, soliciting clients, and newly married couples, with their larger family in tow, to sign up and legalise their bond.
At last, I reach the EPFO and am directed to the first floor with a chit in hand, that says number 125, and so my turn comes after 4 hours of sitting in a hot stuffy corridor, with a 'cooler' that dispenses hot water, an okay toilet that is quite clean. There is a canteen, but it only had lassi and vada pau and sweet tea. An office that has dotards visiting, with no sugarfree tea, no nutritious snacks for sale, and people are expected to wait for their turn, to be linked on their Aadhar card, and mobile OTP, for hours and hours, after having travelled from far flung suburbs, to claim (in most cases) a puny monthly pension. It is heartrending to see some of the dotardliest dotards, who cannot even walk on their own, are supported by relatives, just to come and get their 'alive' certification.
The lift was out of order and the other lift was only for staff. There is an open area within the enclosed building with a throwball net, I wish I could have had a ball to occupy myself during my 4 hour wait. At least a television should telecast news for the oldies who are waiting patiently. Dear government officials, old people need a little pampering.
So, business men should rejoice, that they are spared this debacle, as they do not qualify for a government 'pension'.
Central government employees get the highest salary and so their pension is also the highest in India, from rupees nine thousand upto one lakh, fifty thousand per month. Wow! Just imagine what their salary would have been. State government employees are the next well paid pensioners, including BEST employees,(and how they boast about it), and private workforce employees like me are the lowest on the pension scale. Hardly in 4 figures. My pension is so little that I am almost ashamed to proclaim it, it wouldn't pay one visit to my diabeteologist, forget paying for the medical tests that someone who is superannuated has to undergo, in our dotage.
Beside the renumeration discrepancy, between government employees and others, the pensioner has to visit the pension center or the EPFO (employees provident fund organisation) at Bandra east, every year, or the pension is not granted into that person's account. It is to prove that you are alive and well and deserving the pension, or it goes to the spouse, or it is supposed to go to any minor children, which is hardly a possibility, unless the pensioner has died on the job, after 10 years, that is.
And so, it was time to visit the EPFO. To access the Bandra east office, I had to walk along the skywalk from the station. I had to dodge my way among the crowd, all rushing along in both directions, at different speeds. The view on either side of the Bandra east skywalk, is something that our prime minister, the shiv sena, the chief minister, should all observe. It is the dirtiest, most polluted area, with tinshed slums, built upto 4 storeys, hard to believe, but they should be seen to be believed. scores of children of all age groups loitering in the plastic strewn, garbage covered ground along the train tracks, rats running around, goats and hens and stray dogs too. Forget Mahul, this area is worse, because these slums are thriving, their families are growing, and they flourish on hawking goods along the skywalk, begging, or running tiny shops along the tin shed slums. Where are their toilets? Where are their schools? How many have TB or are drug addicts? Which water do they drink? I request the Mirror channel and Faye D'souza, to do an eyeopener in this urban area too. These slums are happy as they can beg easily, travel easily in the locals and so..........
As I walked along the skywalk, the area on one side is a huge open sewer, with garbage and rubble dumped on one side and cultivated land along the other, irrigated with the sewer water obviously. The other side of the skywalk is a main road, with lots of traffic, and lots of tin shed slums, with blue plastic roofs, lots of open gutters along the road, and lots of barefoot pedestrians. Shops sell cheap food, cheap clothes, cheap everything. On the skywalk, these slum dwellers hawk mobile covers, bags, toys, belts, wallets, head phones. If Mr. Waris Pathan has his way, Byculla will soon replicate Bandra east. Already, the Khada Parsi statue vicinity is an open slum, after this very old monument has been renovated and been granted an A grade heritage status. How is it that Mr. Pathan has sooo much empathy for the displaced slum dwellers in Mahul, but he tries his worst, and his goons too try their worst, to terrorise ordinary citizens near his Byculla office?
Towards the end of the skywalk, posh HDIC towers glass facade looks imposing, and then is the SRA (slum rehabilitation authority) with a very congested concrete building, the residents of which have thrown garbage out onto their lower roofs, a sad reminder that people do not care for their surroundings unless they are educated. The end of the skywalk opens onto the Small Causes Court and lots of advocates and lawyers standing around, soliciting clients, and newly married couples, with their larger family in tow, to sign up and legalise their bond.
At last, I reach the EPFO and am directed to the first floor with a chit in hand, that says number 125, and so my turn comes after 4 hours of sitting in a hot stuffy corridor, with a 'cooler' that dispenses hot water, an okay toilet that is quite clean. There is a canteen, but it only had lassi and vada pau and sweet tea. An office that has dotards visiting, with no sugarfree tea, no nutritious snacks for sale, and people are expected to wait for their turn, to be linked on their Aadhar card, and mobile OTP, for hours and hours, after having travelled from far flung suburbs, to claim (in most cases) a puny monthly pension. It is heartrending to see some of the dotardliest dotards, who cannot even walk on their own, are supported by relatives, just to come and get their 'alive' certification.
The lift was out of order and the other lift was only for staff. There is an open area within the enclosed building with a throwball net, I wish I could have had a ball to occupy myself during my 4 hour wait. At least a television should telecast news for the oldies who are waiting patiently. Dear government officials, old people need a little pampering.
So, business men should rejoice, that they are spared this debacle, as they do not qualify for a government 'pension'.
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