India is ageing, and the latest official figures present how rapidly that is occurring. The Nationwide Household Well being Survey – 6 factsheets, launched in August 2026, point out that the proportion of Indians aged 60 years or older has reached 12.9%, up from 11.8% in NFHS-5, some 4 years earlier. This represents a small nationwide improve, and whereas important, just isn’t probably the most attention-grabbing side of what the information reveal.
The extra essential conclusion is that India is not ageing as one country. Keralam, which was already the oldest state, now has 20.7% of its inhabitants aged 60 and over; Goa is at 17.2%, Himachal Pradesh at 16.4%, and Tamil Nadu at 16.3%. However, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh had their proportions of aged folks improve by solely 0.4 and 0.3 share factors, respectively and stay younger by any measure. There’s additionally the case of Ladakh, the place the share of individuals over 60 rose from 8.9% to 14.6% in 4 years, a 5.7 percentage-point improve, which is larger than the rise Kerala achieved over the identical interval.
It’s not possible to use a single nationwide template to such completely different populations. In States which can be already ageing, there shall be will increase within the demand for care of power ailments, geriatric services and long-term care. Though youthful States have extra time forward of them, that point is precisely when preparation ought to happen. Pushing aside motion till the aged inhabitants is massive sufficient to be seen when checked out as a gaggle, means responding to demographic change reasonably than predicting it.
What the very fact sheets can not inform us
The NFHS-6 State and nationwide reality sheets embrace 101 key indicators. The one considered one of these regarding older Indians is the proportion of the inhabitants aged 60 and over; all the opposite info that might inform us about their well being is both included in age teams which can be too broad to be of any use or is given in a type that doesn’t permit linkage to people.
With regards to hypertension and excessive blood sugar, the 2 principal indicators of India’s burden of non-communicable diseases, each circumstances are recorded for adults aged 15 and over. Thus, a 25-year-old and an 85-year-old are positioned in the identical statistical class. Based mostly on the out there reality sheets, there isn’t any option to know the way frequent hypertension is among the many aged in India, how this prevalence differs from State to State, or whether or not the States ageing most quickly are additionally experiencing the steepest improve in power illness amongst older adults.
With regards to nutrition, the hole is much more obvious. Physique mass index is reported just for adults between the ages of 15 and 49, and never as a result of older adults have been measured after which overlooked of the tables. They have been by no means weighed. Top and weight are recorded just for girls as much as 49 and males as much as 54. The inhabitants whose dietary and purposeful standing issues most as a society ages doesn’t seem within the information in any respect.
With regard to health insurance and financing indicators, they’re offered on the family stage. These indicators inform us whether or not a family has protection, however they inform us little or no about whether or not the older individual in that family is financially protected when their healthcare wants turn into intensive and long-term.
There’s a deeper design situation beneath this. NFHS interviews girls as much as 49 and males as much as 54. Above that age, Indians seem within the survey solely as a line within the family roster and, if chosen, a blood stress cuff and a glucose studying. So even the place we have now a measurement for a 70-year-old, we have now little or no to clarify it with: nothing on their tobacco or alcohol use, whether or not they’re on remedy, whether or not they sought care, whether or not they nonetheless work. The aged are enumerated. They don’t seem to be interviewed.
This doesn’t imply that NFHS-6 is a flawed survey; it’s, the truth is, probably the most precious sources of knowledge on inhabitants well being out there wherever on the planet, and it was meant to trace total inhabitants well being reasonably than to reply all of the questions raised by an ageing society. However as India’s age construction adjustments, so should the data system used to formulate well being coverage.
The proof is older than the coverage
This is not only a theoretical situation: because the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) has been prolonged to all citizens aged 70 and over, the federal government has now assumed duty for financing the well being of a really massive variety of aged folks.
To serve that inhabitants adequately we have to know greater than merely how many individuals are eligible. What number of stay with power ailments? What number of need assistance with on a regular basis actions? How a lot are they paying out of pocket? Solely on the idea of this info can we inform whether or not the cash and the providers are being directed in the direction of the fitting wants in the fitting States.
India possesses the mandatory tools to take care of these questions. The Longitudinal Ageing Study in India, performed by the Worldwide Institute for Inhabitants Sciences, was designed exactly for this function. In its first section, it included greater than 73,000 adults aged 45 and over, gathering info on their well being circumstances, their use of and expenditure on healthcare, financial circumstances, social networks, purposeful well being, and biomarkers. It’s a main piece of infrastructure.
The issue is that the primary wave covers the interval 2017 to 2018. For a coverage programme being expanded this 12 months, a baseline that’s eight years outdated can’t be thought of up-to-date proof. As soon as information has been collected, it loses relevance over time, and this decline in worth is most speedy in circumstances the place the underlying inhabitants is altering rapidly.
Staying present
When a niche in information is recognized, the reflex is to name for a brand new survey. That’s the fallacious intuition right here. India already runs two surveys. The NFHS provides an everyday, broad image of inhabitants well being throughout the nation. The LASI does a deep dive into ageing and its social and financial penalties. They have been constructed to do completely different jobs, and turning the NFHS right into a second LASI could be costly and would injury what it already does nicely.
What is required is extra modest. Maintain the ageing information present, reasonably than letting a decade cross between one wave and the subsequent. Report the numbers by age the place the NFHS already collects them, significantly for hypertension and blood sugar. And design the 2 surveys to allow them to be learn in opposition to one another, as an alternative of sitting in separate silos.
An ageing India should do greater than merely depend its older inhabitants; it can additionally want to seek out out what their necessities are, the place these wants are showing first, and whether or not the well being system is ready to meet them. With regard to the primary of those questions the information are actually pretty good, however with respect to the others we’re nonetheless making guesses.
(Tanya Singla is a analysis pupil, tanyasingla.india@gmail.com, and Megha Jacob is an assistant professor within the division of economics at Jesus and Mary School, College of Delhi, mjacob@jmc.du.ac.in; Karan Babbar is an assistant professor of economics at XLRI Jamshedpur. phd17karanb@iima.ac.in)
Printed – September 03, 2026 02:26 pm IST
