PIB TrackerThe Ayush 2047 projection quietly assumes the growth rate halves
A first-of-its-kind survey values the sector at US$36.92 billion growing at 16.91 per cent. Its own 2047 target implies 8 to 10 per cent.
What happened
- An RIS study estimates the Ayush services sector at US$36.92 billion in FY 2024-25, a 16.91% CAGR since FY 2022-23.
- It supports 1.76 million livelihoods and generates US$1.77 billion in Medical Value Travel revenue.
- The study projects US$216-318 billion by 2047, framed against Viksit Bharat @2047.
- The estimate rests on a nationally scaled, establishment-level survey of 15,914 establishments across all six Ayush systems.
- Released at the 11th Ayurveda Day in Nagpur on 23 September; MoS Prataprao Jadhav, Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha and RIS DG Prof. Sachin Kumar Sharma quoted.
For Prelims
- The six Ayush systems: Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy. The survey covers all six - which is what makes it the first sector-wide measurement rather than an Ayurveda estimate.
- RIS: the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, an autonomous policy think tank under the Ministry of External Affairs - so the economic case for Ayush was built by a foreign-policy research body, not a health one.
- Establishment-level survey: output measured by surveying the units that produce it, rather than estimated from sales or imputed from employment. It is the same method the Annual Survey of Industries uses for factories.
- Medical Value Travel: the official term for health tourism - foreign patients treated in India. At US$1.77 billion it is 4.8 per cent of the sector, which makes Ayush a domestic service economy first.
- Why this measurement arrives now: services have historically been the least measured part of Indian output. MoSPI released its first monthly Index of Services Production on 29 September, covering 19 sub-sectors - none of them health or Ayush.
- Reading a CAGR against a projection: a 16.91% rate sustained for 22 years multiplies a base by about 31 times. The projected range multiplies it by 5.9 to 8.6, which is 8.4% to 10.3% compounded.
- Ayurveda Day: observed on Dhanvantari Jayanti; this was the 11th edition, held in Nagpur.
- The policy use: an establishment-level number lets Ayush enter national accounts, industrial classification and investment promotion as a measured sector rather than a cultural claim - which is what the Secretary meant by an evidence base.
For UPSC: This is a sector acquiring a measurement, which is more consequential than the measurement itself. Use it on the services economy and the difficulty of measuring it, on traditional medicine as both health policy and economic policy, on medical value travel and soft power, and as a worked example of why a projection should always be converted back into an implied growth rate before it is quoted.
What it is NOT: The release gives no breakdown of the US$36.92 billion across the six Ayush systems, so whether this is an Ayurveda figure with five smaller systems attached is unknown. It gives no split between products and services, no state-wise distribution, and no definition of what counted as an Ayush establishment in a survey of 15,914. It does not state the assumptions behind the US$216-318 billion range or why it is a range at all. It gives no comparison with the sector's share of total health expenditure or of GDP. And it offers no reconciliation between a 16.91 per cent current growth rate and a projection implying less than half of it.
For Mains
Syllabus: GS2.13 · GS3.2 · Linkage L2
Anchor
The study values India's Ayush services economy at US$36.92 billion and says it has grown at 16.91 per cent a year since 2022-23. It then projects US$216 to 318 billion by 2047. Those two statements do not describe the same trajectory: the projected range implies compound growth of 8.4 to 10.3 per cent over twenty-two years, roughly half the current rate. At 16.91 per cent sustained, the sector would reach about US$1,148 billion.
Substantiation (data)
The underlying work is the serious part. The estimate rests on a nationally scaled, establishment-level survey of 15,914 establishments across all six Ayush systems - the first time the sector's economic contribution has been measured this way rather than asserted. It supports 1.76 million livelihoods, about US$21,000 of output per person engaged, and generates US$1.77 billion in Medical Value Travel revenue.
Position
Measuring a sector is how it stops being a cultural claim and becomes a policy object. Until there is an establishment-level number, Ayush cannot enter national accounts, cannot be classified industrially, cannot be targeted for investment promotion and cannot be argued about honestly. That RIS used the same method the Annual Survey of Industries uses for factories is the detail that gives the figure standing - and it lands one day after MoSPI launched a services production index that covers nineteen sub-sectors and includes no health services at all.
Counterpoint
A two-year CAGR is a thin base for a twenty-two-year projection. Growth measured from FY 2022-23 starts in the immediate post-pandemic period, when health and wellness spending rebounded everywhere, and two data points cannot distinguish a recovery from a trend. The projection's implied slowdown may well be the honest adjustment for exactly that - but the release presents 16.91 per cent and US$216-318 billion side by side as if they agreed.
Problematisation
Medical Value Travel is 4.8 per cent of the total, which inverts the usual framing. Ayush is routinely discussed as an export proposition and a soft-power instrument; this survey says it is overwhelmingly Indians paying Indian practitioners. That is a more defensible basis for a US$36.92 billion claim, and a less flattering one for the policy attention the sector receives, which has concentrated on international recognition rather than on the domestic 95 per cent.
Conclusion
The measurement is the achievement and should be repeated annually until a trend exists. Until then, quote the US$36.92 billion and the 1.76 million livelihoods, and convert the 2047 range back into the growth rate it assumes before using it - because the study's own projection is the most cautious number in its own release.
Deploys into: Measuring the services economy · Traditional medicine as health and economic policy · Medical value travel and soft power · Reading projections back into implied growth rates
Ministry of AYUSH · 2026-09-30 · PRID 2316869 · PIB source ↗