By Mr. Jaishankar Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer and Director, India Autism Center
“The Union Budget 2026 marks a meaningful shift in how India is beginning to view mental health and neuroscience, particularly through the announcement of a second NIMHANS in North India. By expanding advanced neuroscience research, mental health education, and clinical services, the Budget acknowledges that mental health infrastructure must grow in depth, scale, and expertise to meet rising needs. Equally important is the recognition that care cannot remain confined to institutions or emergency settings alone. For individuals under spectrum, care does not end at emergency intervention it is lifelong, specialised, and deeply human, closely aligning with our mission at the India Autism Center. Through our Caregiver Outreach Programme to train 300 specialised caregivers for Samavesh, our purpose-built residential care facility, we are addressing an invisible crisis that has long remained under-acknowledged: the shortage of trained, autism-specific caregivers. The Budget’s emphasis on building both institutional capacity and a skilled caregiving workforce is an important step towards moving mental health and neurodevelopmental care from the margins to the mainstream, where continuity, empathy, and expertise are treated as essentials, not afterthoughts.”
