Cost, budgets and paying for care

There is no rate card for home care in India. Prices are agreed household by household and move with the city, the caregiver’s experience, the shift timings and how urgently you need someone. Two neighbours can give figures that differ by 40 per cent and both be honest.

The cost guide breaks the price down by care level, hours and city tier, lists the components that are usually excluded from a quote, and shows three sample monthly budgets. The budget note below is the one families repeat afterwards: agree the extras — food, travel, phone, festival leave — once, in writing, instead of arguing about them every month.

Where money is the binding constraint, the answer is to change the shape of the arrangement — fewer hours at higher risk times, a nurse-visit model, day-care a few days a week — never to put clinical tasks in untrained hands.