The cost of elderly care in India runs from rupees ten to twenty thousand to over rupees one lakh fifty thousand plus a month or more at a premium facility. That is a gap in basic care that leaves lakhs of people out of the care umbrella or someone to look after a parent who can no longer manage alone.
Most families sit somewhere in the middle of that range. A fair number don’t sit anywhere on it at all.
What is the cost of elderly care in India at each level?
Old age home fees depend heavily on the city, the room and how much medical support is included. Providers quote these rough bands:
Basic paid homes (₹10,000 to ₹25,000 a month): Shared rooms, simple food, minimal medical help.
Mid-range private homes (₹20,000 to ₹70,000 a month): Better rooms, regular health check-ups, more staff.
Assisted living (₹60,000 to ₹1,50,000 a month): Round-the-clock nursing, mobility support and medical monitoring. Premium homes in Chennai are quoted at ₹45,000 to ₹90,000.
Luxury communities (₹1,50,000 a month and above): Apartment-style suites, wellness programmes and on-site healthcare.
Rents and nursing salaries are higher in metros, so the same level of care costs more in Delhi NCR than in a smaller city.
Why can’t every family afford it?
Take the cheapest paid option on that list. At ₹10,000 a month, a basic home costs ₹1,20,000 a year.
For a household already stretched by rent, school fees and its own medical bills, that is a serious ask. For an older person with no income of their own, it is a wall.
And that describes a lot of people. The UNFPA’s India Ageing Report 2023 found that more than 40 per cent of India’s elderly belong to the poorest quarter of the population, and nearly one in five have no income at all. The same report projects that people over 60 will make up 20.8 per cent of the country by 2050, up from about 10 per cent in 2021.
What happens to elders whose families can’t pay, or won’t?
Two different situations hide inside the same statistic.
In the first, the family wants to care for a parent and can’t. There is no spare income, no space, no way to cover medicines. The affection hasn’t gone anywhere. The money has.
In the second, the family has stepped back. Care has become an expense someone decided not to carry, and an elderly parent is left without a home to return to.
Widowed women often have it hardest. The UNFPA report notes that older widows are frequently alone, with little support and more health problems to manage.
Either way, the result for the elder is the same: no bed, no regular meal, nobody checking whether the medicines were taken. The price list above doesn’t apply to them, because they can’t reach even its first rung.
What is Protect Abandoned Elderly?
Protect Abandoned Elderly is Give.do’s flagship programme for older people who have no family able or willing to care for them. It connects donors with verified NGOs that give these elders a place to live and people to look after them.
Which NGOs does Protect Abandoned Elderly support?
Jeevan Aanand Sanstha was founded by Sandip Parab. It shelters more than 230 elders, many of whom ended up at bus stands or on roadsides after their own children left them. Parab and his team have helped over 3,000 elderly people in about a decade, largely on their own finances.
SHEOWS (Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society) is a general old age home in Delhi, founded in 1994 by Dr GP Bhagat. Its Guru Vishram Vridh Ashram takes elders in free of cost. A rescue team goes out at night, especially in winter, and in-house medical staff treat residents on arrival. SHEOWS says it has rescued over 10,000 elderly people since 2003.
Pure Devotion Foundation, led by Gopal Das, cares for abandoned widowed mothers in Vrindavan, a city home to more than 30,000 widows, many of whom beg for their meals. It began during the COVID-19 lockdown by helping 80 widows through food shortages. It now provides monthly grocery kits and medical care, and has built a shelter home in Radhakund, with a larger one planned in Vrindavan.
How can you help an abandoned elder?
You don’t need to fund a whole home. Donate to mission Protect Abandoned Elderly in whatever capacity you can. Every expense needed for care of abandoned parents is a bill someone has to pay. For the elders in these homes, that someone is a donor.
Give exists to alleviate poverty by enabling the world to give. Established in 2000, Give, together with its partners, is the largest and most trusted giving platform in India. Give enables individuals and organizations to raise and donate funds conveniently to any cause they care about, with offerings including crowdfunding, corporate giving, cause marketing, and philanthropy consulting. Give’s community of 2.6M+ donors supports 3,000+ verified nonprofits, serving 15M+ people across the country.