Behind the caregiver course: the State Senior Citizen Protection Unit and the district forums the Keralam Senior Citizens (Care and Protection of Rights) Bill, 2026 sets up

Background

Keralam's memoranda with twelve institutions on elderly welfare, and the caregiver course with them, follow a Bill the Assembly has passed, which becomes law on the Governor's assent. The Keralam Senior Citizens (Care and Protection of Rights) Bill, 2026 builds a legal frame around the rights and dignity of people who are 60 and above, and around their social security. It covers the registering, regulating and monitoring of care centres for older people, caregiver training with certification, and steps against abuse and exploitation. At the top sits a State Senior Citizen Protection Unit that has to be in place within three months of the law coming into force. Each district gets a protection forum in that same period and a district protection unit within six months; the forum supervises care centres and the unit inquires into complaints. A doctor or a care centre that sees abuse, neglect or exploitation must report it to the district unit; if there is clinical proof of grave neglect, the report goes in within 48 hours of the examination. Every police station must have a senior citizen nodal officer of a rank not below Assistant Sub Inspector. It also promises a public register of certified caregivers, cyber cells for fraud aimed at the old, and a State Reserve Fund for their welfare. The Finance Subject Committee scrutinised it first.