SANJOG MAHESHWARI
DISTURBING DOUBLE STANDARD
-SANJOG MAHESHWARI
While autonomous bodies such as Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) with its country-wide jumbo network of Laboratories and sub-laboratories, hundred percent financed and funded by the Central Government, may be correctly or incorrectly, perceived as white elephants, it should not certainly be the hidden excuse for the Government to mete out step-motherly treatment to the pensioners of these autonomous bodies and discriminate them against their counterparts retired from the Government service in the matter of providing health-care and medical facilities through the agency of the Central Government Health Service (CGHS).. The denial to them the health-care and medical facilities under the Central Government Health Scheme (C.G.H.S) at par with those made available to the so-called purely government pensioners is one such blatant discrimination that hits where it hurts them most..
The government forgets that the hapless autonomous-body pensioners are also worthy senior-citizens of the country. They are as much vulnerable to the age-induced most debilitating, incapacitating, degenerative, and not quite infrequently-terminal diseases and illness, and as inadequately equipped to meet the exorbitant cost involved in their treatment from their own abysmally slender resources, as their counterparts- retirees from the Govt. service- whose cost of treatment in the C.G.H.S empanelled private health-care units and hospitals is borne directly by the government. Thus, while the latter are afforded credit facilities that make them eligible for cashless transactions in the matter of health-care and medical treatment in the recognized private hospitals, diagnostic centres, nursing homes and other health-care centres, the government in blatant discrimination against the former, denies them the same.
Further the pensioner-beneficiaries of C.S.I.R are required to pay for their treatment at the General Public Rates (G.P.R) and get reimbursement at the Government approved Rates which are just about half the G.P.R. For this, also, they have to run around complying with absurd formalities, placating babus, getting department's permission before and after the treatment, incurring all expenses from their own slender resources on the spot in the first instance irrespective of the enormity of the amount of expenditure involved even in emergent circumstances. . Then irrespective of whether their health permits or not, they have to do several rounds first to get the departmental permission for the treatment then for getting the reimbursement bill on the prescribed forms verified from the treating doctor, then again to the laboratory for its scrutiny only to get reimbursement of completely watered-down bill after several months of making repeated rounds. Cases are not wanting when the reimbursement documents of the claims amounting to thousands of rupees are lost somewhere entailing further miseries to the pensioner-claimant who would, in such cases, rather like to forgo the whole claim than to suffer the harassment- waiting endlessly to get, if lucky enough, the severely retrenched claim.
They even do not get a permanent CGHS token card for the life and, therefore, are required to revalidate it every calendar year, in spite of the fact that they make full payment for availing CGHS facilities for the whole life prior to their retirement at the same rates and scale as are applicable to their counterpart in the government service. They have no place to go if, unfortunately, they happen to fall ill somewhere outside the place from where they normally get these truncated CGHS facilities.
The babus of their department with abnormally swelled egos also take sadistic pleasure in retrenching the claimed amount on the most flimsy grounds (feigning ignorance of the Hon’ble Delhi high court’s verdict that mandates full reimbursement of the expenditure incurred on the medical treatment), and that too after the claim is subjected to several absurd objections settling of which is no less than a punishment.
The autonomous body pensioner-beneficiaries of CGHS have made several representations to the authorities of the Health Ministry including those to the Hon’ble Minister but all have fallen on deaf ears so far and the victims of this blatant discrimination continue to live under the ever-lengthening shadow of fear and insecurity.
The denial of credit facility and cashless service by private recognized hospitals to the CSIR and other autonomous body pensioners who are CGHS beneficiaries is a cruel, inhuman and heartless joke still being perpetuated on this particular section of hapless senior citizens in the twilight years of their life even though their counterpart retirees from the government have been availing the facility for almost a decade now.
Not to be left behind, the autonomous bodies themselves vent their unwarranted wrath on their pensioners. Strange though it may appear, C.S.I.R. pensioners get their arrears of pension/family pension, medical reimbursement etc paid months after they become due and payable only because they have their Savings Bank account in those Nationalised Banks which have not been approved by that particular laboratory from which they retired as it wants them to open the Account in that one only which happens to be its favourite at a particular point in time. Why should they not be allowed to open or continue with the account they are already operating in any other nationalized bank as is the case with any other central government pensioners? Is not opening and operating a bank account at a scheduled bank of his choice, a matter of personal convenience of the concerned individual? With multi-city banking in vogue what is the problem? Pay-outs can also be credited in the pensioner’s saving bank account in any scheduled bank through Electronic Clearance System (E.C.S) as well. What is the justification of coercing them into opening an account in the bank of the Laboratory’s choice only, even when they do not find it convenient to do so and already have an account in some other nationalised bank?
If even after decades of non-performance by the C.S.I R., the government decides to spend hundreds of crores annually on it just to keep the show going, despite of being grossly unhappy with it; it is the government’s problem. Why should it take it out on the hapless pensioners of the C.S.I.R?
As respected senior citizens of this country, all pensioners should be treated at par, in all matters be it making provisions for health-care and medical facilities or operating of a Savings Bank account. And if the C.S.I.R is not adequately serving the purpose for which it was established then they should do something about that instead of inflicting unwarranted mental torture and agony on the pensioners for no fault of theirs. - -SANJOG MAHESHWARI
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