<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Active ageing: Re-look fare policy
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->AT THE dialogue on active ageing reported in last Thursday's article, 'Seniors look for more active lifestyle', I questioned the anomaly of senior citizens' concessions on public transport continuing to be restricted to specific time periods.
In the report, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Lim Boon Heng was reported as saying that concession fares were unfair, that the number of elderly people in Singapore was growing, that young people would have to shoulder the cost of providing concessions to a big group of people, and that it would not be sustainable.
For 10 years, I have actively lobbied for senior citizen fares to apply at all times and the public transport operators have loosened their reins ever so slightly.
My appeal is to help the still-working elderly who usually take on low-paying jobs and must reach their workplaces early.
So, the minister's reply is sad as it projects ahead to a future that today's elderly may not live long enough to participate in.
The other implication is that the aged are seen as a millstone around the necks of a more progressive and younger future generation.
One would think that, for the present, it is enough to consider whether the public transport operators are operating at some degree of profitability, and all evidence is that they are doing so.
As long as that happy state of affairs is maintained, surely the daily needs of more than a couple of million commuters should take precedence over the interests of, at best, a few thousand shareholders, or even of generations to come?
Narayana Narayana
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->AT THE dialogue on active ageing reported in last Thursday's article, 'Seniors look for more active lifestyle', I questioned the anomaly of senior citizens' concessions on public transport continuing to be restricted to specific time periods.
In the report, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Lim Boon Heng was reported as saying that concession fares were unfair, that the number of elderly people in Singapore was growing, that young people would have to shoulder the cost of providing concessions to a big group of people, and that it would not be sustainable.
For 10 years, I have actively lobbied for senior citizen fares to apply at all times and the public transport operators have loosened their reins ever so slightly.
My appeal is to help the still-working elderly who usually take on low-paying jobs and must reach their workplaces early.
So, the minister's reply is sad as it projects ahead to a future that today's elderly may not live long enough to participate in.
The other implication is that the aged are seen as a millstone around the necks of a more progressive and younger future generation.
One would think that, for the present, it is enough to consider whether the public transport operators are operating at some degree of profitability, and all evidence is that they are doing so.
As long as that happy state of affairs is maintained, surely the daily needs of more than a couple of million commuters should take precedence over the interests of, at best, a few thousand shareholders, or even of generations to come?
Narayana Narayana
