Parliamentary Standing Committee Recommends Making Cancer A Notifiable Disease

The estimated incidence of cancer in India in 2024 at 15.6 lakh cases, revealing a rise from over 13 lakh five years earlier, makes a sound argument for the disease to be made notifiable under law. Cancer kills about 8.2 lakh people a year.

The disease is, at present, notifiable under local regulations in 17 states and Union Territories, but the Union government has baulked at issuing a national regulation on the ground that health is a state subject. It has also obtusely resisted the call for mandatory reporting because it views cancer as a non-communicable disease, unlike tuberculosis, malaria or dengue.

That argument, made before the National Human Rights Commission two years ago, besides being inaccurate—cervical cancer is linked to the human papillomavirus—ill-serves the cause of public health. It seems to point more to a preference not to collect depressing data.

An accurate picture of cancer can help map many key aspects of its prevalence and incidence, thereby aiding remedial measures. India does have a registry, maintained by the ICMR—the National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research, Bengaluru—but it covers only about 16% of the population.

As a disease that is challenging to treat, often prohibitively expensive for the patient and offering no certainty of outcomes, governments ought to assume full responsibility for prevention, testing, and treatment of cancer.

The recommendation to declare cancer a notifiable disease, made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare in its 139th report, must be welcomed in this context. Now, the Supreme Court, too, has directed states to consider uniform notification guidelines.

Cancer Burden Demands Action

As a country with the third highest incidence of cancer in the world even under available reporting systems and a patient base that makes it the ‘cancer capital’, India cannot avoid facing up to its public health responsibility.

In one study, the available data show that people in Mizoram have nearly double the risk of developing cancer compared to the national risk of 11%. Delhi led the metropolitan cities in cases per one lakh people. Yet, only feeble efforts are being made to control tobacco and curb hazardous chemicals, asbestos, air and water pollution, and harmful food additives.

Making the disease notifiable may have a salutary effect, since causative links can potentially be established in various peak sites. India’s failure to scale up its cancer registry is disappointing, compared to the initiatives of Nordic countries in Europe, North America, Brazil, China, Singapore, and Australia.

It is also a continuing tragedy that India makes only incremental advances in expanding public financing of healthcare. Cervical cancer, a common form affecting women, could cost ₹15 lakh to treat, and prostate cancer among men, ₹10 lakh, as per commercial insurance figures. Catching it early can improve both medical outcomes and cost management. A robust database is basic to positive intervention.

Published on: Friday, August 21, 2026, 09:19 PM IST