Anti-skid tiles, medical rooms: New norms for old-age homes

NEW DELHI: Lifts with audio visual signage and signalling system, 24X7 on-site ambulances with oxygen facility, mandatory medical facility and emergency medical room, tie-up with nearest hospital, gas leak detection mechanism, wash basins with grab rails, outward opening door and anti-skid tiles in bathroom and walking tracks and facility to raise alarm would be some of the mandatory requirements for private players managing oldage homes in urban areas.

These are part of the guidelines that the Centre issued on Wednesday for development and regulation of retirement homes. Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri said his ministry has shared the guidelines with the states governments in its bid to make the life of senior citizens living in such facilities easier.

The guidelines details what all the builders and maintenance agencies would have to provide starting from safe design furniture that are lightweight without sharp edges to wider staircase, handrails on both sides of stair flights, not more than 12 treads in a single flight to putting illuminated or radium strips to alert the senior citizens in the homes.

The guidelines also suggests the states to recognise these as real estate project and fall under the real estate regulation law, RERA.