Click to play videoNew Delhi: Senior citizens are one of the most financially vulnerable members of the society.
Families in Delhi are grappling with their modest income given that the rate of taxation continues to be prohibitive for them.
Delihite Bhushan Lal Vohra retired as the Director General of Police of the Civil defence unit after serving in the Indian Police Force for nearly 4 decades. With 3 daughters now married and settled, the Vohras currently stay alone in Saket in Delhi. Mr Vohra gets a modest pension as per the government rules, half of what serving officers get paid today. But with rising costs and endless expenditures, it's often a challenge to fund his expenses, especially since he also pays a 30 per cent tax on his income.
Vohra says, "Planning the budget also is very difficult every month because there are lots of unforeseen expenditures come especially as medical part. Now we are more than 60 and suddenly you are prone to fall ill and private health care is so costly that 1 can’t even describe....within minutes it costs you thousands of rupees."
In another part of the city, the Soods are busy figuring out their income tax returns. They had built a house almost 50 years ago so the rent from it, would help them earn a living. But these days the 30,000 rupee income from the rent barely helps, since this is also taxed. In the last 2 budgets, they got some relief with modest rise in their income tax limit, but many like the Vohars and Soods feel that their basic income be it from pension or house rent should be freed from the tax net.
Senior citizen Mrs Rajkumari Sood appeals, "Finance Ministerji since you are a senior citizen yourself, you will understand our problem in a much better way and we request you to exempt the house rent from Income Tax purposes which will enable us to meet thousands of our problems in these hard days."
Mr Vohra appeals, "Mr Finance Minister sir may I appeal to you on behalf of all the government pensioners to exempt our pension from Income Tax because we find it very difficult to manage our day to day expenses from the pension that we receive. There are very heavy medical expenses...domestic expenses...petrol expenses. Therefore it'll be in the interest of all the pensioners who are in the evening of their lives if they are exempted from income Tax it'll be of big help and we'll be grateful to the government."
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