Why does India need a trained workforce for elderly care?

Every day Sreeni wakes up at 4.30 am and checks on his mother. If she is unsteady on waking up, he will assist her to the raised toilet and wait outside as she independently uses it, assuring her that help is just outside. There is a schedule of medicines, clearly sorted and kept by her bedside. The BP monitor and the glucometer reassure him that everything is in the range for her age. He learnt it all by himself, one emergency visit after another to the hospital. Hip pain was ignored till it became a debilitating fracture, a sudden loss of consciousness detected as low sodium — each crisis was a hard lesson in the trial-and-error reality of informal caregiving. Every day millions like Sreeni wake up and perform their respective self-taught routines to take care of their parents or dependants.

As our country’s population ages over the next two decades, the topic of caregiving and the need for formal training for the task will assume larger dimensions, and this is precisely what the Budget 2026-27 has highlighted in a timely manner with the announcement of training of 1.5 lakh caregivers aligned to the National Skills Qualifications Framework.

The NITI Aayog’s August 2026 report “Reimagining Care: Strategies for Empowering Caregivers in Viksit Bharat@2047” frames caregiving as an economic activity rather than just welfare work, and this is the first time that such an intention is explicitly articulated by the Government at a national policy level, which indicates that the urgency has been acknowledged by policymakers.

Also Read: India’s growing elderly population needs an integrated care system, says report

To put it in perspective, India’s 60-plus population, estimated at approximately 149 million in 2022, is projected to touch 347 million by 2050, forming roughly 20.8% of the total population. Assuming NITI Aayog’s estimate that 10% of the population today is engaged in caregiving while being untrained and unpaid, the current total works out to about 146 million.

The planned 1.5 lakh formally trained workforce is just a drop in the ocean even by today’s requirements. The caregiving ecosystem will be at a serious juncture if we don’t plan now.

Gender parity in caregiving