India’s eldercare architecture rests largely on the family, with the IGNOAPS pension at Rs 200 a month and no national long-term-care system. Discuss the demographic urgency and the policy steps required, with reference to NITI Aayog’s Senior Care Reforms framework.

Introduction:

India's eldercare architecture rests on Article 41 directives and a family-anchored Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007. The 60-plus cohort will roughly double from about 10.5 percent in 2022 to 20.8 percent by 2050 per UNFPA's India Ageing Report 2023, overtaking children under 14 by 2046.

Income inadequacy: The Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) pays Rs 200 per month for those aged 60-79 and Rs 500 for 80-plus, unchanged since 2007; about 71 percent of the elderly are rural and 52 percent are women — the feminisation and ruralisation of ageing. The Mahila Samman scheme and PMVVY offer market-linked instruments but exclude the informal-sector elderly.

Care infrastructure: The National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly (NPHCE), Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana and the SAGE start-up platform address geriatric care; long-term-care institutions and dementia services are almost absent. Old Age Homes are unlicensed; the Atal Vayo Abhyuday Yojana provides limited community-level support.

NITI Aayog framework: The Senior Care Reforms position paper (February 2024) outlines four pillars — social, financial, health and digital inclusion — and proposes a National Policy on Active and Healthy Ageing 2024, replacing the 1999 policy.

Way forward / Conclusion:

Recast IGNOAPS as a non-contributory universal social pension indexed to inflation, create a National Eldercare Authority to license LTC homes, integrate Tele-MANAS geriatric streams with NPHCE, and use Code on Social Security 2020 channels for elderly informal workers.