CommonAge Scholarship recipient Mr M H Dalal
We are delighted Mr M H Dalal, who is credited with founding the first senior citizen commune in India, accepted our scholarship to attend the IAHSA/ACSA conference in Perth at the end of the month. The Oasis in Pune. Maharashtra has been operating for 12 years, and Mr Dalal’s consultancy now offers holistic services for those wanting to establish senior living.
Mr Dalal is the founder and chairman of the Association of Senior Living in India (ASLI), an association which has brought together developers, service providers, operators and anyone else with an interest in the senior living industry in India, and he has spoken about aged care and senior living in India at conferences in India, Singapore and America.
“India is at a cusp of the start of this sector; it I in a nascent stage,” says Mr Dalal. “We, at the moment, do not have any regulations or by-laws governing or guiding this industry. At ALI I am involved in setting up the first by-laws and code of best practices for this industry.”
Currently in India only one senior in every 10,000 is engaged in some form of senior living, compared to 12 in every 100 in the USA and four in every 100 in Australia.
By 2025 it is estimated that India will have 173 million seniors above the age of 60 compared to the 76 million today. The current demand for senior housing in India is about 312,000 units.