Increasing migration increases demand for old age homes in Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: As migration of youths from Kerala to foreign countries has been witnessing drastic increase over the years, the state is also seeing a rise in demand for old age homes and retirement homes.

With the sector offering a lucrative business opportunity many private parties are also entering the field by offering old age homes with modern amenities. Hence, the state government is looking into the need for imposing regulations. The social stigma over old age homes is also fading away.

The number of old age homes, both paid and unpaid, registered with the Board of Control for Orphanages and other Charitable Homes under the state social justice department was around 500 in 2015. Now it has increased to 630. With some private players also seeking registration, the board is looking into the need for regulations to avoid fleecing of senior citizens.

The board chairman N Ali Abdullah told DH that as the number of paid old age homes was increasing, the board's next meeting scheduled for this month would discuss the need for any regulations.

While old age homes were earlier considered as places where children dump their aged parents, now even aged and well off parents themselves are making enquiries at paid old age homes. Some old age homes are also ensuring that children did not 'dump' their children at old age homes.

"The interest to stay in the old age home should come from the aged person itself.  We never allow parents to be dumped by their children at our home," said K J Joseph, a retired director general of police in Kerala, who has been running the Vishranthi-Old age village in Kannur district in Kerala since 2005.

At present many old age homes and retirement homes that offer state of the art facilities have come up in the state with lifetime fees starting from Rs 25 lakhs.

Even as the stigma over staying in old age homes has almost faded in Kerala, majority of the residents at paid homes seem to be opting it as they were left with no other option, said founder and executive director of Sai Gramam that runs charitable old age homes as well as paid ones.

While demand from aged couples for paid old age homes have been increasing these days, Joseph said that singles were in more need of old age homes. "Initially we used to accommodate only couples. But later we came to know that most aged couples living alone manage to help each other, while single aged persons are in need of support," he said.

Studies by the Kerala Planning Board and the Centre for Development Studies had pointed out that by 2025 about 20 percent of Kerala's population would be elderly and the state's elderly population was growing at a perpetual rate of 2.3 per cent and the growth rate was high among the elderly aged 70 or 80 and above.