Amrita Nidhi: Monthly Pension Scheme for Poor Women
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A Much Needed Respite
At a time when children are forgetting their
responsibilities to their elderly parents, denying
them basic necessities such as food and shelter,
Amma's compassion has come as a welcome and much
needed respite in the form of a monthly pension
scheme for impoverished women. Nation-wide, 50,000
qualified women are now receiving Amritanidhi
pensions. The beneficiaries are either widowed,
married to sick or disabled men, or those who
have to survive on the small amount they receive
from the occasional work they are able to find.
While government pensions generally stop when
the recipient's children turn eighteen years
old, M.A. Math's pensions are given for life |
"So many needy women do not qualify for government
pensions."
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In the first three months project, the Amritanidhi
co-ordinator, Smt. Sarada, processed 10,000 applications.
She was assisted by volunteers who helped her
process hundreds of letters everyday. Smt. Sarada
and her team spent more than one year going through
application forms and meeting the applicants.
She says, "Amma is the very embodiment of
compassion. She knows that most families here
rely only on the sea and the coconut trees for
their livelihood. Fishing is very hard for the
men folk, they often become disabled or sick
due to the hard life. Shore fishing is seasonal. |
Every year there are famines. The families cannot
really make a living. I've seen the plight of people
while doing this job. The men have fallen from coconut
trees, have damaged hips or have disc problems, or
they have TB or cancer. It's very pitiable. Sometimes,
the women bring their sick husband's picture when they
apply. Often they can't write and so we help them.
We manually prepare lists of all the applicants in
every district of Kerala. There are thousands of applicants.
Our branch ashrams also send them to us. The problem
is that so many women do not qualify for government
pensions. Government schemes are limited to specific
occupations like agriculture, and coir work or they
are only for handicapped people. Our scheme fulfils
an important need. "
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