Subsidies help elderly in HK to get out and about
Print Edition
“WE started off with a cable car ride, and then we went to see the dolphin show,” Chow Yong, 82, was thrilled when speaking of her Ocean Park trip with two other elderly friends of her.
“Two dollars for a single journey. It’s dirt cheap!”
Leading a simple life, Chow’s major pastime is listening to Cantonese opera in the elderly center near the public estate she resides in.
Thanks to a government-financed transport fare concession scheme, her social circle has been broadened.
“I enjoy going to different places especially when I am still healthy,” she said.
The Hong Kong government introduced the scheme in 2012, which allows elderly people aged 65 or above and the disabled to travel on designated public transport modes and services any time at a concessionary fare of HK$2 (25 US cents) per trip.
As the transport fare concession scheme is extending to more transport modes and the steady rise in Hong Kong’s elderly population, the government’s reimbursement of revenue forgone to the operators will rise to around HK$1.1 billion in this fiscal year.
The government promises to increase the annual recurrent expenditure by HK$163 million to enhance elderly services, which mainly include providing 320 additional subsidized residential care places and 168 day care places.
Among the 1.2 million elderly population, over 830,000, like Chow, are enjoying different types of public allowances.
Nearly 430,000 senior citizens are benefiting from the Old Age Living Allowance introduced in 2013 by the government, with the amount raised from HK$2,200 to HK$2,390 a month.
The government is launching Low-income Working Family Allowance Scheme in May, which is expected to benefit 200,000 low-income working families comprising 700,000 people.
The estimated disbursement of allowances for LIFA Scheme will amount to about HK$2.9 billion per year. It is expected to cut the overall poverty rate by 2 percentage points.
Since 2012, the government has introduced measures on a pilot basis through the Community Care Fund, which aims to provide help to people facing economic difficulties.
More than HK$700 million of recurrent expenditure has been allocated to this program.
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