India might be facing lack of Yoga instructors

New Delhi: Despite the growing awareness regarding the benefits gained by doing yoga, a paper authored by ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation revealed that India faces a shortage of over three lakh yoga instructors.

The paper, which was published in lieu of International Yoga Day, which will be celebrated on June 21, notes that the current demand for yoga gurus is about five lakhs in India and this has escalated into greater enthusiasm to take up yoga as a career.

The scope of yoga as a career choice is a wide canvas, from opportunities to work in nature resorts to schools, to fitness centres to setting up personalised studios to even becoming personal yoga instructors of celebrities, the paper revealed.

Fitness institutes, yoga ashrams, and independent certified yoga therapists offer a number of yoga courses for becoming yoga instructors. The footfalls to these places have witnessed a quantum increase, and yoga's image has changed from traditional and uninteresting to that of being trendy.

Majority of people are ready to shell out money from Rs 5,000 month to Rs. 25,000 a month for yoga classes, as they consider it an investment for their physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, the paper noted.

With yoga gaining popularity around the world, there's a shortage of trained yoga instructors around the world. The popularity of yoga amongst celebrities makes teaching yoga an even more lucrative profession.

Today, yoga is an intrinsic part of lifestyle for people across the country, and the growing number of yoga studios and personal yoga coaching classes are a testimony to this trend.

The demand for yoga teachers is at an all-time high in Southeast Asia and India has emerged as one of the biggest yoga teachers' exporters to Southeast Asia as well as China.

An estimated 3,000 Indian yoga teachers are teaching in China and most of them belong to Haridwar and Rishikesh, which are said to be the yoga hubs and home to various yoga schools.