Out of a population of 3.34bn, there are 58 million people in India living without a pension, lobbying organisation Pension Parishad has warned.
In its’ State of Pensions in India Report 2018, Pension Perishad said that 80 million elderly Indians are entitled to a state pension of INR200 (£2.13, $2.73, €2.40) a month, but only 22.3 million people are currently receiving it.
The report said that the INR200 monthly pension, which was set in 2007, has effectively reduced in spending power to just INR93.
Pensions is a hot topic in the country, where, at the end of September, more than 10,000 elderly people protested in New Delhi to demand universal pension rights.
Second-worst
Figures from digital social pension database Pension Watch showed that, of the overall eligible population, 9.92% are receiving a contributory pension; 17.74% receive a social pension; and 72.34% are left with no pension.
Pension Parishad claimed that the Indian Government spends as little as 0.04% of its GDP on National Social Assistance (NSA), the programme in place to ensure income security to the elderly.
This year’s Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index ranked India’s retirement income system as the second-worst in the world.
Additionally, on 9 October, the Indian Supreme Court noted that the NSA programme was suffering from great implementation gaps, considering that people entitled to the monthly INR200 were not receiving it.
