Dark side of IVF boom: Money pours in but industry remains unorganised

India is in the midst of IVF boom. With people marrying late, lives in cities becoming busier & more stressful, & air pollution taking its toll, more & more couples are turning to IVF for conception

In the summer of 2022, a 16-year-old woman in Erode, Tamil Nadu, drank floor cleaner in an attempt to kill herself. She had been put in a government home after the arrest of her mother and stepfather on charges of forcing the girl to donate her oocytes — a cell in an ovary that goes on to form an ovum — to fertility centres on eight occasions for money.

The case blew the lid off the murky side of in vitro fertilisation (IVF), a procedure that helps people with fertility issues have babies by combining eggs with sperm in a