"Did you try to live on this pension? Try, please. »

This morning in the passageway of the Neftchilar metro station, attention was drawn to an elderly woman begging for alms in a quiet, uncertain voice, clearly different from professional, vociferous beggars with a standard set of texts.

I could hardly recognize her: extinct eyes, gray hair, knocking out from under the headscarf, did not get involved with the image of a fashionable woman I once knew. I could not pass by. Stopped, went to the side, talked.

Salima-khanum worked for many years in our village policlinic as a nurse. She always looked stylish was attentive and pleasant in communication, and patients often appealed to her. As soon as she turned 60, she was immediately sent to retire. As she had a small salary her pension totaled AZN 146. Then as a result of devaluation, inflation, prices went up, the pension is not enough for a month. Not only food products went up, but utilities and medicines. There is nobody to help the old woman, she has no children and relatives. She failed to get a job, and now she has to beg. As only she collect a couple of manat for bread, or pasta, she goes home.

"They refused to count my pension. I could not help saying to them: "Did you try to live on this pension? Please, try "....

I shared this fact with friends on Facebook. Mendicant pensioners immediately began to write about their miserable existence. Participants in the virtual debate talked about dozens of elderly people asking for alms, selling napkins, socks, sweets, trying to make money. Recently, the bill "On the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" was discussed in the Milli Majlis.

Deputy Hadi Rajabli spoke about problems in this area. I remembered Araz Alizade's remark, addressed to colleagues: "Who among you can live on 52 manats a month? Surely no one. It is necessary to raise benefits for the disabled. "

According to official statistics, there are slightly more than 1.3 million pensioners in Azerbaijan. Of these, more than 200,000 receive a minimum pension of 116 manats or slightly more. The average pension of this part of pensioners is only 140 manat, it's not even 100 dollars at the current rate. The chairman of the Union of free consumers Eyub Huseynov, the initiator of the creation of a new NGO "Help for the elderly," believes that the main problem in the imbalance of pensions, the mechanism for calculating pensions for various categories of workers.

"For example, civil servants receive a large pension, while other employees in the budgetary sphere - teachers, doctors, technical staff of state bodies, despite a solid work record, receive a rather modest pension. But the work of a teacher and a doctor is no less significant than the work of an official. I think we need to take measures to level out the big difference between the amounts of pensions. In the budget there is a means for this. Perhaps, it is necessary to change the mechanism for calculating labor pensions, citizens who retired before 2006, "Huseynov emphasizes.

An important aspect is the prevention of social poverty, the expansion of the coverage of targeted social assistance, the introduction of a model of additional payments to small pensions and other forms of assistance to the poor. There is something to adopt from Germany, where today 900 points of free distribution of food sets operate, they regularly use up to 1.5 million of needy old people. This is 23% of the total number of pensioners in the country, while in 2007 there were 12.3%.

According to the norms adopted in Germany, an elderly person needs to receive a minimum of 800 euros a month. If the pension is below this mark, then the state pays an amount that is short of a living wage. It is estimated that about 400 euros are for housing, and another 400 euros the pensioner spends on other expenses, including food. According to statistics, this surcharge in the country receives 535 thousand people, or 3% of the total number of pensioners. In fact, in the country there are twice as many people who have the right to claim this allowance. But many do not formalize it - some do not do it out of pride, others simply do not know about this possibility.

According to Huseynov, in Azerbaijan it is possible to apply such a system of support to low-income pensioners. There are many well-off people who could organize free distribution of food sets to the poor. In addition, it is possible to increase the subsistence level to the amount of the consumer basket, to pay the missing amount to the pensions of a number of categories of pensioners. In this case, the principle of social justice will really work in the country.