Goa: For seniors, angels walked in where government failed to tread

Lisa Monteiro | TNN | Updated: Apr 5, 2020, 12:39 IST

Many credited their neighbours and friends for helping them (Photo Credit: Rajtilak Naik)

PANAJI: Had they waited for the government to come to their rescue, the disabled, and the elderly living alone would have long perished during the lockdown weeks.
Following the government’s diktat to stay at home, the aged tell TOI they survived the rough lockdown only thanks to the generosity of their neighbours and friends who helped replenish their stocks of basic essentials.
No help was forthcoming from government representatives who otherwise frequent their homes before elections.
Julia, 75, who lives alone with her disabled daughter on the outskirts of Margao, is furious. She panicked after the lockdown was announced and called the MLA from the neighbouring constituency who is known to her on March 26. She is yet to hear from him.
Elderly slam politicians over poor supply of groceries
I was so frightened that’s why I called him. ‘Poita, Poita’, is all he told me. My councillor must have died. He hasn’t even provided me with garbage bins,” she says with frustration.
Her disabled daughter, who relies heavily on her medication, has been without it since March 28 and Julia neither uses a mobile phone nor the internet.
“I’m afraid to leave the house. The pharmacy keeps promising me they will send me medicines but I’m still waiting,” Julia says, adding that her neighbours and friends have been helping her with some groceries.
“Only God has helped me through my Hindu neighbour and friends,” she says. “The councilor should have called for courtesy’s sake or come to see how we are surviving or atleast send someone to inquire,” says Julia, who is surviving on the little money she has left. When she went to the bank on March 16, the government had not deposited the Rs 2,000 under the DSS scheme, which she depends on.
After her bitter experience, she has decided she will stay away from voting in the next election.
“I used to pay Rs 200 for a rickshaw to take my daughter to the polling station to vote for every election without fail. I’m not going to go anymore. They come to us when they’re in need but when we’re in need they don’t care,” she says.
Person with disabilities Vishant Nagvekar living in the state capital says he received groceries at his doorstep only after he made a hue and cry about it on social media. He was forced to do this after he couldn’t get through any of the helplines announced by the government and Panaji corporation.
“During elections, the government representatives know all the houses of the disabled, and provide water, wheelchairs and transport to the polling station, but during this crisis, they have failed. The officers are all the same, so why can’t they directly reach out to those in need?” he asks.
Instead of centralised helpline numbers, the government should have published local contact numbers like that of the booth-level officer who arranges everything during the elections. Similar provisions could have been made, he says.
For an 85-year-old doctor living alone in Chorao, it was again his friends who are helping him through this rough patch. “My friends have been very helpful, otherwise it would have been impossible to survive,” he said.
The government should have given people prior notice of the lockdown and made better arrangements, he says. “The government went about it in a scatterbrained manner. They didn’t make any arrangements. While we have been struggling for groceries here, my relatives in Panaji and Taleigao are perfectly all right. Their government representatives have looked after them, but ours have not looked after us,” he says.
In another instance, a Caranzalem resident had a tough time standing in three hour long queues procuring groceries for his 92-year-old mother, who lives alone with her caretaker in Panaji. His request for a travel pass, specifically for the distance from his place in Caranzalem to Panaji was rejected by the government.
“I didn’t ask for the pass to fool around. I mentioned that my mother is dependent on me for her supplies but they rejected it after three days,” he told TOI.
“The government hasn’t factored in the problems of the elderly living on their own. I need a pass to be able to rush to her if there’s an emergency. Do they expect me to go online and register for a two-hour-pass at the time of an emergency? The twohour window is not even enough to buy groceries from our neighbourhood supermarket,” he says , adding that the announcement put out by the government sounds like the 92 year old has to apply for the pass herself.
This system is a great injustice to those who cannot apply for it online, he says.
The government should have been proactive rather than reactive, he says, adding that they were busy focussing on the zilla panchayat elections when they should have been channelising their energies on how this public health crisis would pan out.