Adarsh of Primus Life explains what active senior living communities in India offer, what they cost, and what families abroad should check before choosing one for a parent.
Adarsh of Primus Life explains what active senior living communities in India offer, what they cost, and what families abroad should check before choosing one for a parent.
Adarsh, Managing Director of Primus Life, joins Avinash to explain active senior living communities in India. He is a Bangalore-born engineer who did postgraduate study in the UK, then worked in regular real estate, which he says was good for buying shiny things but not very satisfying.
His path began with his grandmother, who had about 11 siblings. Many of their children had settled in the US, and her sisters once described retirement housing there. They did not want to move, because they did not know anyone in that country. Adarsh was largely brought up by his grandparents while his parents built their business, so his childhood memories centre on her care.
He took a sabbatical to visit the US and see that retirement housing for himself. He came back convinced it helped people live happier and for longer, and he decided to build something similar in India. Two of his grandmother's sisters lived with the family until they died. The first project was operational in 2015, the year she died. He says the business began almost by accident, and he still asks whether a decision would make his grandmother proud.
Adarsh calls the word retirement the biggest disease being sold around the world. He accepts that people leave formal work, but says the trouble starts when they stop doing what gives them joy and purpose. That, in his view, is when difficulties begin and assisted living becomes necessary. Nobody retires in his communities, he says, because residents refine their purpose and live their best years actively.
He also separates lifespan from health span. Lifespan is recorded with birth and death certificates, but nobody measures health span, which is the number of years a person lives independently and actively. He says the purpose of senior living is to improve health span, so that people age more slowly and stay active on their own terms.
People rarely move into these communities only because their health has failed, he argues. The stronger reason is the chance to live somewhere that slows ageing and keeps people active. He contrasts this with buying a house as an asset that may or may not appreciate. What he offers, he says, is a lifestyle with services included.
Adarsh uses blue zones to explain his approach. He describes a blue zone as an area or village where the average lifespan or health span is above 100, and names Okinawa in Japan, Loma Linda in California and Sardinia in Italy. Their climates, genes, food and culture differ, he says, and the one shared factor is that people there live beyond 100. Background on the research is at Blue Zones longevity research.
He recommends a book by a Japanese researcher who lived in these areas, which he calls Ikigai. He says it applies whether a reader is 30 or 60. According to Adarsh, the book identifies five common factors:
He adds a smaller point from Okinawa, where he says people eat only 70% of their stomach's capacity. He also says people who age slowly around us follow these principles without knowing it, while isolated and inactive people tend to age faster. Senior living, in his description, puts these principles in one place and adds proactive health care and nutrition.
Adarsh names three trends behind demand. The first is nuclear families. He says India is already about 60% nuclear nationally and 74 to 75% in urban areas, and that this is the largest driver of his model.
The second is financially independent elders. He says many older people spent years saving for themselves and then their children, while their children now encourage them to spend on enjoying life. The third is women who have run households for decades and now want to step back from chores such as managing the cook.
He says Primus pioneered multigeneration housing, where senior living towers sit alongside regular housing towers in one project, so families can live together and apart. He gives penetration figures: about 8% of people over 60 live in retirement communities in the US, 12% in Japan and 7% in Australia. He says India's figure is much smaller, and expects the model to become the norm.
Some NRIs buy senior living units as an investment instead of a second home in India. They rent the unit to elders until they return, or ask a parent to live there for a period. He says rental returns are about 30% higher than for a regular house, because many elders have pensions but not the capital to invest. Primus, he says, connects owners with tenants and oversees the process. These are his figures, not a guaranteed return.
Adarsh splits senior living into three parts, and says services now matter more than the building. Early senior housing was mostly real estate with a doctor on call. Today healthcare, nutrition, concierge, housekeeping, events and common areas are bundled into one package.
Beyond housing, he says many companies serve people in their own homes, offering healthcare, engagement, travel, home improvement and technology to monitor falls. For the difference between assisted living, retirement homes and home care, read assisted living, retirement homes and home care in India.
Adarsh splits the cost into housing and services. Housing is priced like any real estate in the same micro-market, but a little higher, because the community includes a medical centre, kitchen, restaurant and larger common areas, plus safe bathrooms, safe flooring and emergency systems.
He suggests families first work out what they already pay for services at home, since a cook may or may not turn up, while community services are guaranteed. At Primus, he says, the medical, kitchen, housekeeping, events and concierge teams are bundled and their cost is shared among the users. The company works on cost plus 20% with an open book, so residents can see how each cost is built up. He says the aim is transparency rather than margin.
These are the figures he gave for a Primus community in the June 2025 video:
| Cost item, as Adarsh described it | Figure he gave |
|---|---|
| Housing with common area maintenance, food excluded, like a typical apartment | About 6,000 to 8,000 rupees a month |
| Additional services: medical centre, fixed food and beverage cost, housekeeping, events and concierge | About 10,000 rupees a month |
| A couple without a food and beverage package | About 15,000 to 18,000 rupees a month |
| Food and beverage package, per person | About 6,500 rupees a month for three full meals and three half meals |
| Two people with everything included | About 35,000 rupees a month, with GST |
He puts the total for two people with everything included at about 35,000 rupees a month, with GST, which he says is similar to what a couple might spend at home. These are general figures, not personal financial, tax or legal advice, and other communities may charge differently. For a wider view, see senior living and retirement home costs in India for 2026.
Adarsh's first test is how satisfied existing residents are. He calls this the real measure of whether an operator is a service company or a real estate company. He warns that a much cheaper house usually means a thin service layer, and that people who are not happier or healthier gain little from moving. He suggests checking three things:
A single visit to a community where elders live, he says, answers many of these questions. Families who want help exploring options can start with senior living support.
Adarsh says the industry is still early, and that regulation usually follows growth. He describes housing as already over-regulated, with several government bodies involved, and says some states define certain housing as senior housing. For services, an industry association has appointed an independent assessor who can certify communities for good service standards, and Primus communities are certified. He expects more regulation over time, though the industry does not yet know what to regulate.
On the US, he argues that heavy regulation has pushed providers to withdraw services. In his description, a typical active community there offers a house and one central restaurant with market-rate meals, housekeeping on call, and medical help through the 911 helpline. He says that is like a regular apartment with common areas, and that India offers much higher service levels.
He adds that assisted living in the US and UK is service-heavy because Medicare, the NHS and government-linked insurance pay providers. He says this raises a problem India also faces today, without explaining it further.
Adarsh contrasts reactive and preventive health. Most people see a doctor after something goes wrong, then go through tests and medication until a condition may be too advanced to reverse. He says that once a disease develops, doctors can usually only manage symptoms, while a condition caught on day one may be fully curable.
Primus runs what he calls preventive health care plans. They combine healthcare, physiotherapy and psychosocial markers into a health score, and residents are monitored actively. He says Primus was the first to put such a plan in place, and calls it one of the company's key differentiators. He urges families to ask how they could put their own parents on a disciplined testing plan.
He describes three roles for technology. The first is early warning: data from the home and medical centre, such as bathroom visits, sleep and heart recovery rate, plus blood markers, flags possible conditions. The second is falls, which he says are the second biggest cause of early death among elders. Physiotherapy checks how weight is shared between the legs, and fall sensors help staff respond faster. The third is convenience: residents can request services through WhatsApp, and an app in development will let parents decide what their children can see.
Adarsh says people abroad often miss their social connections and the people they love, and most of those people are in India. He sees this as the main pull for families who return, and says many want convenience after raising their children. For a related read on staying connected, see why retirement in India does not have to be lonely. For another personal account of that choice, read the story of a doctor who chose India for retirement after 46 years in the US.
India never leaves you because it is home.
He says there is no advice to give on the decision to return, which he sees as natural. His advice is to stop treating ageing as something children must manage for parents. He says ageism is a problem, and that elders want joy, friends of different ages, fun and their own passions. He asks families not to keep telling parents what not to do, and to encourage them to live as actively and independently as possible.
He gives three practical points. First, treat preventive healthcare as a way of living, and check on your parents' health and wellbeing regularly. Second, ask the blue zone questions: are they physically active, mentally stimulated and purposeful, and surrounded by friends and family? Third, if the answer is no, ask what you can do to help. That need not mean moving them to another community, since it can be solved at home.
He goes further on care. He says the worst thing families can do for their parents is give them a nurse, because a nurse who does everything can make a parent dependent, which he links to other conditions. Children are needed for emotional support and meaningful conversation, he says. Families weighing the wider cost of elder care for parents in the US can read the hidden elder care costs for NRI parents in the US.
Watch the full conversation on the Desi Return YouTube channel.
Use the return-to-India planner to build a free, personalised plan for your move back to India.
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0:05 The entire concept of senior living is to solve for people to improve their health span. How can we age slower? So India at the India level is already at 60% nuclearization. Got it. At an urban India level, it's probably like 74 to 75%. So India is already nuclear and the trend is it's going to get more and more nuclear. It's about 8% means 8% of everybody above the age of 60 is staying in a retirement community. In Japan it's 12%. In Australia it's 7%. So if you look at some of these factors in India it must be 0.001. There are this whole bunch of people who are not in India today who want to ultimately retire in India. So they are buying it like an investment product or like a insurance for themselves. And for example in our own communities if you keep the food out of it even if you add the common area maintenance like any typical apartment what are the things that you would tell them like you know the dos and don'ts you know when they're selecting a particular active senior living community they don't give any services
1:06 So if you look at India the level of services that we give whether it is food whether it is medical whether it is housekeeping whether it is concas whether it is engagement it is very very high compared to a normal community say in the US and that as we get older the things that we value the most are our social connections and the people that we love and the worst thing that we can do for our parents is to give them a nurse again these are all social conditioning right Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of DII return. Today's topic is expert talk on active senior community in India. So today I'm really really excited to have Mr. Adash on our show.
2:07 Mr. Adash is managing director of Primus life which is a organization helping seniors have a quality life when they retire and Primus has been in business for more than 10 years lot of knowledge lot of insights in terms of what's happening in active senior community what's going on what trends and I'm really looking forward to this discussion to understand the ground reality in terms of what's happening in this field and how people who are living abroad can plan their retirement or for their parents' retirement as they think in terms of what are the options available in India. With that, I'm really excited to invite you to our show and glad to have you with us to provide some insights on what's happening in this field and domain.
3:00 Thank you Ainas. Thank you so much for having me. I'd love to share my journey and hopefully make people understand how aging works. That's fantastic. So Adash, let's get start a
3:13 Little bit about your background and what made you to get into this active senior living community space. it's interesting. So curious about that. so yeah, I am a I am a proud Bangalore boy born and brought up in Bangalore. I had this interest when I was studying that I wanted to have an industry. So I landed up doing industry engineering from RV College of Bangalore. Again a very Bangalore institute. but the reason that I started it is of course very different. so you know the entire reason that I started it was because of my grandmother. I wanted to do something that would make her proud right and the and the backstory to this is something like this. my grandmom has about 11 siblings. Wow. We are you know South Indians born brought up in Bangalore.
4:03 For us education is everything right. We are not I'm not even you know from a business family so to speak. So our focus was you know always on education. So all of my grandmom's siblings have children in the US because they're all highly educated and every time they used to come home that is my grandmom sisters and I'm talking this is a story way back in 2013 or 2014 they used to tell her you know in Canada which is our local language u what is you know for you you have a son you have a grandson for us our children are calling us to US apparently there's something special there for old people it's called retirement housing but we don't want to go there it's a world country we don't know anybody and this was the time around which I had finished my education and I was back in India for my postgraduate had gone to the UK and then when I came back I I was I was dabbling you know in in regular real estate right but while that was good to buy shiny things it wasn't very
5:03 Satisfying and I was brought up by my grandmom cuz my mom and dad started their entrepreneurial journey you know after my when my dad was close to 40. So because he struggled for many years, I was brought up by my grandparents and all of my memory of my childhood is around my grandmother taking care of me. So when she told me hey why don't you do something it was a it was a thing for me that came from a place of saying okay I will make her proud. So that's when I took a sabbatical from work and then I went to the US to see what is this old age home that is luxury right cuz I didn't know better. Yeah. and then when I visited and I understood that hey this is a place that solves for people to live happier and longer I felt like okay let me do this in India you know there is no solution like this and it'll make my grandmom proud so I came back and I told her listen this is you know I'm going I'm going to do this and I'm going to take care of your sisters and you know we had two of our sisters live with us you know until they are no more and I lost my grandmother in 2015 but we had
6:03 Our first project that was operational by 2015 so yeah so it started off you know like a you can say an accident or something in which I said I'll make my grandmom proud and I never imagined in my wildest dreams that it'll become a large business and it it you know it seems to be headed in that direction. So yeah that's my inspiration and motivation to start this. No thanks a lot for sharing. I think it's these kind of experiences that makes you make the decision and I'm sure you have done fantastic in the last 10 12 years and I'm sure your grandmom will be very happy like you know the journey that you had and the services that you're providing to lot of people in India. So really appreciate you sharing the story and the reason to start this journey here. So my factor for decision making even now is very simple. Every time I have to take an important call, I will think in my own mind, will this make my grandmother proud or not proud? That is pretty much how I take most of my decisions. Wow.
7:03 Cool. So, let's start with the active
7:06 Senior community lifestyle in India, right? Like what's the trend like what's going on on that from your experience from your insights? I think that would be very helpful. So you know when you introduced me you used two things one you said retirement and second you said assisted living. So the first thing that you know I want to clarify is the word retirement is the biggest disease being sold around the world. Right? While people retire typically from what they used to do as a former structure of employment, if people retire from the things that bring them joy and purpose, that's when there is an onset of you know difficulties and that's when it becomes assisted living.
7:55 So the very purpose of our existence is to allow that not to happen. So we hate this word retirement which is why we don't call ourselves a retirement community because nobody retires in our community. M they just refine purpose and passion and joy and they live their best years at least we try to enable them to live their best years actively. Yeah, for the longest time we have been measuring this lifespan, right? People are born, you get birth certificate. People die, you get death certificate. This is called lifespan. Unfortunately, nobody is measuring health span, right? What is health span? Health span is the number of years that you lived independently and actively mean you didn't depend on anybody. And at Primus and the entire concept of senior living is to solve for people to improve their health span. How can we age slower? How can we die on our feet at our own terms? Not at anybody not in a hospital bed but you know for example.
8:56 So u I think that is the first difference in terms of what the solutioning is and essentially what we create when we call a senior living or when we call a project for senior living is we trying to create you know these mini blue zones where people can age slower because the fundamental reason for a person to think about moving into a retirement community is not because their health is bad or because of some issue in in terms of one of the health of one of the family members. was or that their mate didn't show up or their cook didn't show up. The fundamental solve is that you can live in a place where you can slow down your aging and live active. And I'll talk to you a little bit about what a
9:39 Blue zone is. So a blue zone is an area or a village where the average lifespan or health span of a person is above 100. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right. And there are six such blue zones around the world. There's one in Okinawa in Japan. There is Luma Linda in California. There is Sardina in Italy and whole bunch of other places. Now if you look at the unique nature of this blue zone, people are living in different climatic condition, different genetic pools, different food habits, different cultural habits. Yeah. The only different weather conditions. The only common factor is they're all living, you know, above 100. Yes. There was this Japanese researcher who went and lived in all of these blue zones and wrote this book. Yes. And that's called ikiguai. Yeah. And this is something that I highly highly encourage the viewers of your show to read. It's age agnostic, right? It's got nothing to do with whether you're 30 or 60. it tells you how you can look at life to slow down your own process of aging, right? And fundamentally that books book
10:42 Tells five common factors between these blue zones, right? And those five common factors are one, it found that people in all of these areas are physically active. Two, it found that they are mentally active or they're mentally stimulated. Three, it found that there's a strong sense of community. There's reason for people to hang with other people, family members, so on and so forth. Four, it found that nature was part of their everyday life. And five, and the most important one, it said that people here have a strong sense of purpose. Yeah. And there's a smaller fringe one which is only applicable in Okinawa where they found that people eat only 70% of the stomach's capacity. So that one believes that you should not fill yourself up in every meal. So now if you look back at these five pillars of aging, physical activity, mental activity, community, purpose and nature.
11:35 And now think in your own mind about all the people that you know who are elderly, right? And you look at let's give you an example of co right because in covid a lot of us didn't see the people we love for like a couple of years and after you met them two years later some people look exactly like how they were 2 years ago. Some people look like they had aged 10 years in two years. Think about these five factors. Think about the people in your life for whom this is very strong. Yeah. And think about the people for whom it's not strong. Then the answer is very evident. The people who are aging slower around you right now are following these basic principles of iikai without knowing. But that's the best way to do it. Yeah. Right. And unfortunately the ones who are you know getting old very fast are typically isolated. They're not socially active. They're not you know mentally or physically active. So that's the basic philosophy of a a senior living project that we are enabling a place where people can live the principles of a blue
12:37 Zone and on top of that we're putting in proactive health and we're giving in right nutrition and that's what makes a senior living community right it's not that it is a physical building that you buy a house at a certain price and then that house is either going to appreciate or not is not the solution the solution is you move into a where you can age slower and you can have fun in the process and you don't retire. Perfectly makes sense. So thanks for you know clarifying some of these key terminologies and you know what's happening. So along the same lines
13:11 You know having that healthy lifestyle having that you know age slow what's happening in India like you know what are the trends like you know what's going on in terms of building these blue zones or you know these active communities across India. So there are two three large trends I mean the first trend is India is getting nuclear. Would you know what the current nuclearization rate is in India? I'm not sure but I'm sure it's it's going up because a lot of people are moving to metro for jobs, professionals or like you know Yeah. compared to what I used to grow up. Yeah. So India at the India level is already at 60% nuclearization. Got it. At an urban India level it's probably like 74 to nuclear. Right. So I think the the largest driver of the solution is the nuclearization of families. The second large driver is financially independent elders.
14:12 So for the longest time the elders have been in the survival mode. Oh I need to save for myself. I need to save for my kids. I brought up my kids but now I want to also give something to my grandkids. Now the children are financially independent. The children are financially sufficient. So there's no pressure on the elder to provide for their children in any form. And the children are encouraging their parents saying J enjoy your life. Why you saving? Why you be saying I won't want to pay 10 rupees. I will go by bus. I will not go by auto or I not go by Uber. Right. Please enjoy your life. We are fine. We want you to be happy. Yeah. So this is the second thing that now elders have children who are encouraging them to use their liquidity that they have worked very very hard for and saying please enjoy your life. do not try and you know do not keep saving and giving it to us. We don't need the money. We want you to be happy. Yeah. and the third large trend is we are seeing that the women of the house also want to retire from household chores. Yeah. So the women are saying okay boss you are you know you worked for 50 60 years.
15:13 We're grateful for that. Now you're sitting and forwarding WhatsApp and watching TV and reading newspaper. I am still doing the same stuff I used to do right. Calling the cook, managing the bed, managing 100 other things. we don't want to do it. so these are you know some of the large factors and the fourth one is there are newer innovative models like we pioneered this concept of multigeneration housing where we started putting senior living as part of larger projects. So you'll have a few towers of regular housing and one or two towers of senior living so families can live together and apart at the same time. I I call that multigeneration or nuclear joint family which I think informally we're already seeing in many ways. So we're putting a formal structure to it and we're overlaying our services that we provide on top. So you know these are some of the larger reasons why this business is you know growing. The other thing is if you look at penetration rates globally for this business for example in the US retirement housing what they call retirement housing or senior living sometimes they call it 55
16:14 Plus active adult living. it's about 8% means 8% of everybody above the age of 60 is staying in a retirement community in Japan it's 12% in Australia it's 7%. So if you look at some of these factors in India it must be 0.00 0 whatever like a really tiny number. So this is going to become the norm right as people understand that it's a lifestyle solution and that we don't need to be burdened by emotional perception about what we used to think it is because we have been conditioned by Bollywood movies and society to think of senior living as a vidasham or an old age home where oh parents and children don't get along or they must be financially you know not okay and once people come and you know visit one of these they'll realize that it's a solution that you know it's like living in a three star or a fivestar hotel where everything happens in a touch of a button. Yes. And more than anything it it is the whole philosophy of slowing down aging. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, these are the larger trends I would say penetration rates,
17:16 Nuclearization, multigeneration housing and the onset of the service model, right? When when you see how senior living started, initially it started off as a solution of real estate saying you're a bunch of old people. We'll put you all together in a housing complex and we'll give you basic services like if you want a doctor, you pick up the phone, you call, we'll send a doctor if you want something. So the service was not inbuilt into the solution. Yeah. But if you see folks like us today, the service is more important than the housing solution. For sure. We look at I'll talk to you in more detail about health and how we look at it. But healthcare, nutrition, concage, housekeeping, events, common area, everything is blended into one package such that you know it's a very serviceheavy business that solves for a life of convenience and ease. Yeah.
18:08 No definitely makes sense from the trends and why it's important and then you know it's the perception that people have and once they realize it this is the solution you know because of the different needs. I missed out on one trend. Let me just add to that. Sure. The last trend that we are seeing is there are this whole bunch of people who are not in India today who want to ultimately retire in India. So they are buying it like an investment product or like a insurance for themselves. So instead of buying a second home in India, they're buying a senior living project and then they're renting it out to elders till such time they need it or they're they're saying asking their parents do live here for you know 10 years. I'll come to India in 10 15 years and then I'll stay in that house. You we already have one ancestral property right. I don't want to again buy more regular real estate in India. I would much rather buy this you know that gives me an option to come and move whenever I wish to retire. Perfectly makes sense. and someone who lived in abroad who is that kind of comforts you know who want to have that kind of a lifestyle it perfectly makes sense. Oh the comforts and lifestyle is far ahead
19:09 Of that you get in I can guarantee you that because I have visited a lot of countries I visited a lot of housing for seniors as well as regular housing. I can tell you that the level of services that we offer in India is unparalleled anywhere in the world only because we can afford. Yes.
19:27 Along the same lines if someone is looking into these options in India right I think you know yeah one is the blue zones and the different aspects what are the different communities and services that are offered in India today right so broadly Aina if you look at senior living as an overall sector it can be broken into three pieces there's active living there's assisted living and there is nursing care or palative care okay in active living it is a solution for people like you and me, right? It's just that we want a layer of convenience, but we don't need any help in our life on an everyday basis, right? Which is the largest piece of this industry. Maybe 90 95% of it is here. Then there's something called assisted living. It's for people who are not able to do things on their own, right? It could be you know dementia. It could be various neurological conditions. It could be orthopedic conditions that is making mobility limited or there is some
20:28 Other onset of an health issue. Yeah. So it requires bedside care. The third one called palative is more terminal in nature. Okay. There is an oncology case in which there's a certain time period given for life. So then how do you treat that person? It's more psychological. It's less medical. So that is called palative care. So this is the you know the broad spectrum of the care and there are a whole bunch of companies also like ours who provide solutions even in their own home. Yeah. So there are h companies that provide different different solutions. So there are companies that provide housing solutions and housing can be into three pieces. Then there are companies that are providing assistance and technology solutions at home. improvement of home travel services around healthcare services around engagement services around remployment services around technology to monitor falls etc etc so there are a whole bunch of players you know around this ecosystem got it so I think you
21:24 Have talked about these active senior communities like 95% of the people are you know using these senior communities so I would love to understand a little bit about the differences within this space like the kind of communities the services that are offered the cost associated with it so that we get an idea in terms of the options within this space in India right so I spoke to you earlier about the different types of community I'll focus now on the active senior living which is the biggest piece right within that as far as costing is concerned there are two pieces to it there's the housing cost and there's the services cost right as far as the housing cost is concerned, it'll be similar to any real estate project in that micro market.
22:10 Yeah. But it'll be a little more expensive simply because more goes into it. For example, there's a medical center, there's a kitchen, there's a restaurant, there are larger common areas. Within the units, there are additional specifications like safe bathrooms, safe flooring, right? Infrastructure, emergency management systems and you know various other improvements over a traditional home. So that is priced you know in that fashion. However, the services which are really the reason that people choose this is something that people should spend time in understanding what are the services, how much are they currently paying for living in their own homes and that will give a good re you know method to measure cuz services in a retirement community or a senior living community is guaranteed unlike in our own houses right we can't guarantee our own services because one day your cook may show up may not show up consistency of work may be very different but when it's run professionally it's going to be very different. So the cost for the services would be similar to what one would pay in their own house. For example at
23:12 Primus we bundle the cost of the medical team, the kitchen team, the housekeeping team, the events team and the concage team. And then we distribute it by the number of people who are using those services. and we do a cost plus 20% open book mall and we keep everybody on our roles and we transparently give information about how each of the costs are built up so people are aware our objective is to create transparency and not you know to increase our margins and that's the reason that it's done and for example in our own communities if you keep the food out of it even if you add the common area maintenance like any typical apartment would land up being around 6 to8,000 rupees a month Right? Think of it like 2 to three rupees a square ft². And then another another about 10,000 rupees a month would be for the additional services we give which are your medical center, your fixed cost of your FNB, your housekeeping, your events and concage team. So for a
24:13 Couple if they do not choose an FNB package, it'll be around 15 to 18,000 a month. And if they add the FNB package on top of that, we charge around 6 and a half,000 rupees per cup per person per month for three full meals and three half meals. Yeah. So for two people with everything included, we are at about 35,000 rupees a month. Got it. With GST. So it is very similar to what they would spend in their own house. But the advantage is that the services are guaranteed. Got it. Understood. So let's
24:41 I think switch gears a little bit. so for people who are living in abroad, right? I think you know they might be thinking about moving to India after they are done with their hectic work or maybe they're thinking about their parents back in India. So what are the things that you would tell them like you know the dos and don'ts you know when they're selecting a particular active senior living community what are the thing that they should look for what are the things that they should watch out from your own perspective. So I think the first thing and the most important thing is the customer satisfaction of people in the existing community right because that is sat that is the real measure of understanding if a person is a service company or they're a real estate company. So that would be for me on top of the list is to understand the solution after people move in. Yeah. It's not about the cost of the house because when people try to sell you a cheaper house, it typically
25:42 Means that the service layer is very thin. So the purpose of moving itself gets defeated cuz if people are not happier, if they're not part of the community, if they don't feel healthier, what is the point of moving into a retirement community? You could be in your own house, right? So I think that the first one is the layer of services and the satisfaction. And the second one is the experience and the background of the person who's delivering it and the track record. Okay, fine. How long have these guys been around? How many people are they taking care of? Are they saying good things? Are they not saying good things? Right? And third is how many services are there here? What are the kind of healthare services? What are the kind of FNB options? What are the protocols that are kept for you know taking care of housekeeping and various other things. So a typically a visit to one community would answer a lot of these questions. So I would always encourage people to go visit an active community where there are elders and the company has been running it to give a real life idea of you know how things are on the ground. So thanks Adash for
26:41 Sharing the insights about I think people who are living in abroad and what to choose. So continuing in that I know there are some concerns from people who are living abroad in related to regulations in India like you know when we talk about these active senior communities in abroad versus in India like can you talk a little bit about some of the differences some of the you know concerns regarding the regulations I think that would be very helpful so as you know it's a very nent stage of the industry in India like every nent Business regulation normally follows business as it gets large. However, that being said, the housing solution is already overregulated with rare and you know the whole bunch of other government bodies that are involved. As far as the services are concerned, currently there are some regulations in terms of what are the kind of housing that will be defined as senior housing in a few states. And for the services piece, there is an industry body called association of senior living India or as
27:42 Which has appointed grant thin to go out and do independent assessments of communities and they can choose to get certified as giving good standards of service. So for example, primus communities are already certified by grant thin and few other people are there. So over a period of time we do believe that more regulation will come which is a good thing right. So right now people don't know yet what to regulate and it is going to happen. As far as the west and the rest of the world is concerned there is a there is a when I speak to my industry peers abroad because of overregulation they don't give any services. So if you look at India the level of services that we give whether it is food, whether it is medical, whether it is housekeeping, whether it is concage, whether it is engagement, it is very very high compared to a normal community say in the US. So if you look at the US as a market because of overregulation they have more or less withdrawn all services because if they get
28:43 Overregulated companies are scared to give service, customers don't get the service. Yeah. So a typical active senior living community today in the US does nothing other than provide a house. They will have one central restaurant. You have to go to the restaurant. You have to look at the menu. You have to order what you want. You pay for it. Market rates which means it's not sustainable to eat there every day. It's like a fully outsourced restaurant and that's it. If you want housekeeping, you have to call some number. They will send somebody once in a while. If you want medical services, you have to call you have to call the 911 helpline. If you want something else. So it's like living in a regular apartment but they have just made the common areas. Yeah. But in India you will actually find that the people here are giving you know much higher services. We are closer to China when it comes to level of services than you know the US or the Japan. This is as far as active living is concerned. Yeah, the assisted living piece is service heavy but because it's backed by Medicare, it's backed by NHS, it's backed by all the government related insurance agencies. The level of service
29:44 Is high because the companies get paid by the government. Yeah. Which is also a problem statement in India currently, right? So yeah, that's a little bit about you know how this stacks up you know globally. Got it. So yeah, thanks for sharing that. Now I just want to
29:59 Switch the gears a little bit and want to understand how the technology is helping out in this space and the healthcare right maybe you can shed some light I think you kind of gave an indication earlier like on the home elderly care but would love to hear something happening in that space so let me first talk a little bit about health care in general and how we you know at primeness and mercy look at healthare for the longest time we have all been conditioned to be reactive to health, right? Something goes wrong, we go to a doctor. The doctor will prescribe some tests and then we go get those tests done. Then he will look at the test. Oh, this is not okay. And then he we prescribed some medication and then this is a vicious cycle that keeps repeating and one fine day a person will find out that the condition is so advanced that it cannot be reversed and you know from there it's all bad.
30:53 Now if you switch that on the head and say that I will make a plan in which I will test myself on a regular basis for certain things that I'm more likely to be able to do because of my age. The chances that you find something that is wrong with you in stage one or in a stage where it can be fully cured are very high. Yeah. Yeah. So in primus what we do is we run these preventive health care plans wherein we can find underlying conditions in stage one so we improve health span. Yeah right. If there is a development of the disease you can only manage symptoms. You can't cure it. But if you catch it on day one think of like for example we are all very okay to say that oh you know I changed my knee or we got my I got a knee replacement surgery for dad or mom. We are not okay to question why was it needed why didn't we do physotherapy why didn't we find other ways and when say unfortunately some cancer is caught later we're very happy to spend stupid amounts of money to try
31:53 To hope and fight that but we could have easily caught cancer in stage one by just doing regular tests if I do a CT if I do a dexa scan of the body I can probably find muscle loss I can find many other underlying conditions so what we do at primus is we have a bunch of healthcare markers we have physio theapy markers and we have psychosocial markers and then we develop a health score and then we actively monitor people to keep them healthier and to keep them active so that we can catch things in stage one and this is something that you know we're very proud of. We are the only ones in the country who do it. We started it first. Bunch of people are now following us but we were the first ones to put a preventive healthare plan out there and that's one of the key differentiators for us. and then I would encourage all the consumers of your podcast to think about this for their parents.
32:45 How do I get my parents on a preventive plan where there is a discipline to how I test them? How I look at their physiootherapy health? How I look at their community health and then you know suggest ways in which I can make sure that you know my parents live actively and healthily for longer. Yeah. so I think that is the larger point around health and your question specifically was what earlier in terms of the technology like how it's being utilized yeah so when it comes to technology again there are two things right number one is healthcare related technology number two is ancillary technology so for healthare we would be using a combination of variables and non-variables within the house and within our medical center to continuously pull data and then use it to find underlying conditions, right?
33:36 For example, number of times you went to the bathroom, number the way you slept, your heart recovery rate. This gives us an indication plus the blood markers that we do. So, we're using technology to give us an earlier sign of an underlying condition. The second piece of the technology and the second biggest reasons for early mortality in Enders is falls. So, our job is to prevent falls. Yeah, you must have he had enough stories where somebody in you fell down and life was never the same and they passed away. Exactly. So health quality of life severely changes you know in case of a fall. So we have to stop it and we stop it through both physiootherapy and through having you know prevention devices for fall. So when we do a physiootherapy assessment we are able to tell okay how much of weight is being put on which leg how is the muscle density and then we're able to improve their gate to be able to reduce the chance of falling down. Yeah. Right. And we technology wise we put these fall sensors in within the home. So in god forbid there is a fall we're able to
34:37 Attend to them much faster than if they were you know in some other ecosystem. Yes. So technology is being used primarily in finding underlying conditions and in preventing falls. And the third piece of technology is convenience. Right? you can request stuff on WhatsApp. We are now in the process of building our own app wherein you know everything can be viewed and monitored from a single place and this will be both accessible to the children and to the parent and then the parent can decide how much of it they want to give to their kids in terms of view. Yeah. So this is the role of you know technology in elder care as far as primus is concerned. We also have another company called mercy which is a solution for people who are not living in primus communities and in their own house. There we are building an AI companion. We use technology to do healthare plans because since we're giving healthcare at home, we're using a lot of AI at the back end to look at medical data to showcase, you know, where there may be underlying conditions
35:38 And to suggest better quality outcomes. Got it. We're also using technology to integrate the entire spectrum of care and to be a one point of contact, you know, for various requirements that an elderly couple or their children may have. Got it. No, I think that's a very solid in terms of preventive care like something that was detected early in stage one is much easier to manage and you know cure compared to what it's later and it's good to know that you have put a formal plan and a process kind of being setting a leading the path there. so one follow-up
36:13 Question that I wanted to check was I know earlier you mentioned that you know people can buy and you know lease it for the parents or someone. So if someone is living abroad and they are not planning to change the purpose of the life right they're still busy with the work. does Primus also help in leasing their units to someone else or is it something that they have to do on themselves? So just wanted to get that clarification. No, absolutely. There are, like I told you, there are two motivations for NRIs to look at senior housing as an investment. The first motivation is that they want a solution for themselves when they get older. The second motivation is also that the rental returns are very high. It's about 30% more than a regular house because there are these thousands and thousands of elders who get a pension of maybe a lakh or two a month, but who may not have a cr to invest. So they're very happy to rent these units and we at Primus are the conduit to help people fill it up. So there's always massive massive demand for renting. So we have a lot of people who buy it as an investment product and rent it out until such time they need it and we you know
37:15 Oversee the entire process and help them out. Got it. No thanks for sh clarifying that. So finally Adash any
37:22 Advice from your perspective for people who are considering to change their purpose or like you know the lifestyle after living several years in abroad and moving to India. Any final thoughts that you want to share for them? So the thing that I have learned from my interaction with my own family and friends who are living abroad is India never leaves you. You may leave India. India never leaves you because it is home. And that as we get older, the things that we value the most are our social connections and the people that we love. Because you're born in a country where your family is and you grew up with a certain set of people. The majority of the people that you love land up being in India which is the hook to get your get it back get you know come back. So we have seen that that desire is very strong and people want to come back primarily for that and once they come back because they have worked so hard
38:22 Because they have brought up you know another generation they have settled their kids they want a life of convenience which is why solutions like ours is something that people prefer so there's no advice at all to be given here I think it's very natural the advice I would give if at all it's a big word advice is to start looking at aging Not as kids who need to force their parents to live in a certain way or advise them to live in a certain way because we have agism as one of the many problems, right? Actor age, behavior age. No, please remove all these notions. Elders are just like us. They want joy. They want to be surrounded by people of different ages. They want to have fun. They want have ambition. They have their own passions. Please, please, please do not say don't do this, don't do that.
39:14 Encourage your parents to live as actively and as independently as possible. The second thing is please think of preventive healthcare as a way of living. It's the the most important advice I can give is that find a way to check up on the health and wellbeing of your parents. And third is think about the blue zones always. Are your parents physically active? Are they mentally stimulated? Do they have a sense of purpose? Do they know what they want to do every day? are they surrounded by friends and family? If the answer is no to some of these things, what can you do as a child? Because you love your parents. What can you do? How can you help them be more social? How can you help them be more active? Think about it. It's not necessarily about moving them to another community. Yeah, it could just be solving it in their own house. But this is something that people need to understand because we don't understand age. And the worst thing that we can do for our parents is to give them a nurse. Again these are all social conditioning right? Unfortunately what does a nurse do? The nurse makes the parent dependent on them. The parent
40:15 Loses the sense of independence and that's what you know unfortunately brings the onset of many other conditions. Yeah. Because a well-trained nurse is saying don't do anything. I will do everything for you. Don't sit don't stand. I will feed you. I will bathe you. But that's not what is good for our parents. Yeah. And this understanding you know takes a lot of study around aging children that we have to promote our parents being independent and making their own decisions because that is what will slow down their aging not our over interference in their life. What they need us children for is emotional support and meaningful conversation. They don't need us for anything else. Yeah. That's that's our job. No, perfectly makes sense. No, thanks a lot
40:59 For a lot of insights especially in this aging and the critical things you know how we should all look like to make our purpose the five aspects that you talked about. So where can they find more information about what Primus is doing in this space and how Primus is helping out what's the best way for them to reach out or any anything that you can share on that? So you know we run two platforms one is called Primus and one is called Mercy. in Primus we develop senior housing and multi-generation communities where people can buy and live in a secure and safe place where they can aid lower. If you are interested in the projects from Primus, please fill out the form in the description below. Someone from the team will reach out to you immediately.
41:49 Mercy is a platform for active aers to age in their own house. So we do things like travel, we do companionship, we do concage, we do preventive healthare plans, we do a whole bunch of things and that is meri.life so they can look it up. So this is a little bit you know around what I do. So thanks a lot Adash for your time for sharing these insights. I learned a lot I think in terms of the options available in India and how one should look at as they age right I think you know how they should re think or reframe like you know the thought process even for themselves or for their parents and we will share the link on the way to reach out to Primus or Murzy in the description below and thank you very much for being with us today.
42:37 Thank you. Thank you Ainas and thank you for those of you who listened to me. and yeah, it it was nice chatting. Thank you. Yeah, thanks.
Your RNOR window, retirement accounts, and move date planned as one sequence.
