HYDERABAD: Aged women lodged at the two old age homes run by the department of women development and child welfare (DWDCW), in Hyderabad and Chittoor, are a suffering lot as they are not given sufficient food, water or medicine.As many as 50 destitute women aged above 60 were housed in the two 'only for women' homes. Some of the inmates have been staying there for more than nine years. The wardens get `535 per inmate per month as diet charge. However, they have to meet other expenditure too from within this amount.K Padmamma (68), an inmate at the old age home in Hyderabad, said, “Here, we don't have proper food, clothes or medicine. Moreover, there is no regular water supply.”Another inmate, S Radha (65), who is an orphan and staying for the last three years, said they make do with insufficient facilities as they do not have any other place to go. “We have to take whatever is given, we cannot demand,” she said. The amount of `535 per person is not enough to provide, as per rules, breakfast, lunch and dinner (non-veg on weekends and special days), buy toiletries and clothes and meet the cost of unexpected hospitalisation, said a senior official of DWDCW. The department has been asking the government to increase the amount to Rs 1,200, but there is no positive response.Only the Hyderabad home is given Rs 2,000 per inmate per three months for buying medicine, which is not enough as every one of them has some health problem or the other, the official said. “Chittoor old age home is not given medical charges. Moreover, it has electricity dues to the tune of Rs 40,000 as bills were not paid for the last three years,” she added.When an inmate dies, the government gives only Rs 1,250 for funeral expenses. Officials are seeking at least Rs 3,000 as ambulance charge is Rs 1,000, firewood costs Rs 1,400 and cremation charges are Rs 700 at the Bansilalpet cremation ground, Secunderabad.
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