India's demographic time-bomb: the elderly As a young married couple in the 1960s, Hari and Usha Saxena, both of whom were doctors, lived in a traditional Indian family, sharing a New Delhi home with Mr Saxena's parents. The young couple had extra help looking after their three children, and later ensured the seniors were well cared for as they aged. "My parents lived with us until the last," recalls Mr Saxena. In typical Indian society, you take care of your parents. Today, Mr and Mrs Saxena, now 82 and 79 respectively, live in very different circumstances. Their three adult children - and six grandchildren - all live abroad. So the elderly couple rely primarily on hired domestic help to meet their basic needs in an increasingly-chaotic and crowded city. "Delhi is hard for old people," Mr Saxena says. In the neighbourhood, everybody used to know everybody. Now there are neighbours here we don't know and they never talk to us. Social isolation has increased. Transportation is a big problem. The Saxenas are part of a little discussed demographic group now posing a new challenge for India: the elderly, whose numbers are rising fast at a time when the traditional extended family safety net is being eroded by rapid social economic transformation. "It is the unsung story - nobody talks about it," says Kabir Chadha, a former McKinsey & Company consultant, who started a business last year to provide support services to the elderly. This country isn't built to take care of its seniors. About 100m Indians are above the age of 60, the world's second-largest senior population after China. That number will rise sharply to 170m in the next 13 years, when about 70m Indians - slightly more than the population of France - will be over 70 years old. Most of these retirees come from India's middle-class or more affluent groups, where better long-term nutrition and healthcare has extended lifespans far beyond the current national average of 66 years. Overall, India remains a young country. The elderly account for just 9 per cent of the population with their ranks expected to rise to about 14 per cent by 2025. But many urban Indians find it increasingly tough to care for their elders at home, as a result of rising migration, more women entering the workforce and soaring property prices. India's government, and society, is only beginning to recognise the challenge. "We used to take great pride in our family system," says Mathew Cherian, chief executive officer of HelpAge India, a national charity. The joint family is under stress - almost non-existent in some places - but we have not put into place any other system for caring for the elderly. In 2007, New Delhi passed a law - derided by critics as "legislative love" - that made it a crime for adult Indians to fail to take care of their ageing parents. Many seniors do complain of neglect to special tribunals. But new care models are also emerging. Mr Chadha's year-old company, Epoch Elder Care, provides companionship to the elderly living in their own homes - some with, and some without, family. The company's 100 clients are visited from once to three times a week by care specialists. "Their biggest need is emotional and intellectual companionship," Mr Chadha says of his clients. They are lonely. Traditionally, ideas of specialised senior housing - such as retirement homes or assisted living facilities - have evoked horror among elderly Indians, who equate them to abandonment. But increasingly they are also seen as practical solutions to difficult problems. "Elderly homes are a must," says Kamla Nath, who struggles to care for her fragile, and often depressed, 79-year-old husband, and is considering moving him to a senior living facility. I would like to go with him there. Property developers see growing demand. According to Jones Lang LaSalle - the real estate consultancy, India has about 30 privately run, non-charitable senior living projects, and another 30 in the pipeline. Many are in India's more affluent south, which has a higher percentage of old people, as a result of better healthcare and better family planning, though development of such models - and provision of appropriate services - are still in the nascent stages. India's urban property prices mean many senior living facilities are built far from cities, which Mr Cherian says condemn the elderly residents to "isolated living." HelpAge believes India's government should provide discount price urban land for senior housing in cities, as well as starting universal pensions, and better health insurance, as it prepares to meet the growing challenge of caring for its elderly population. It is hoping such measures will be included in a new policy on ageing due to be unveiled soon. "We need to put in certain systems for this demographic shift that will take place, otherwise it's going to be quite disastrous," Mr Cherian says. We need to start right now.