Examine the potential of the Ayush services economy as an engine of employment and Medical Value Travel on the path to Viksit Bharat@2047.

India's Ayush services economy covers Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy. It was valued at US$36.92 bn in FY2024-25 and has grown at a 16.91% CAGR since FY2022-23 [1]. It is projected to reach US$216–318 bn by 2047 [1]. This makes it a strong growth engine for Viksit Bharat, but it is still largely informal.

Potential as an employment engine

• Scale: it directly supports 1.76 million livelihoods, with over 1 million in local and standalone clinics across urban and rural India [1].
• Women's work: women make up 43% of the workforce. In organised segments their share is over half: hospitals 53%, day-care 57%, institutes 58%, spas and wellness >60% [1]. This matters when only 18.2% of working women hold regular salaried jobs [2].
• Fast-growing niches: wellness is growing at a 21.29% CAGR, and yoga-centre revenue rose about 75% in two years [1].
• Public delivery: the National Ayush Mission (a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, 2014) creates organised-sector jobs through state Ayush services [3].

Potential in Medical Value Travel (MVT)

• Foreign exchange: MVT earned US$1.77 bn in FY2024-25. Foreign patients are about 5% of patients but bring 15–25% of hospital revenue, with stays of 5–11 days [1].
• Soft power: India hosts the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine at Jamnagar (2022), backed by a US$250 mn Indian commitment [4].

Constraints

• Informality: clinics and day-care centres earn over 70% of revenue [1]. Small units are hard to regulate and count.
• Data gaps: the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health (2024) asked for standardised data collection and research training for Ayush practitioners [5].
• Recognition abroad: in 2018, only 78 countries regulated traditional-medicine practitioners and 45 covered it under insurance [6]. This limits MVT demand.
• Job quality: the 43% figure counts heads only. It says nothing about women's pay or roles.

Way forward

• Run an annual workforce survey broken down by gender and role.
• Certify the skills of wellness therapists, who sit outside practitioner registers.
• Build clinical evidence through the WHO centre at Jamnagar to win trust abroad.

The Ayush services economy combines job-rich growth, formal jobs for women and MVT that earns foreign exchange. Reaching the upper end of the 2047 projection will need formalisation, regular data and evidence-backed recognition abroad. Done well, it advances SDG 3 and SDG 8 and makes traditional medicine a pillar of an inclusive Viksit Bharat.