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The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is an organisation under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). It releases data based annual reports on varied subjects related to crime, accidents, prisons etc. Some reports for the year 2016 have not been released yet.
The delay in the publication of these reports defeats the purpose of compiling them.
The data for the annual Crime in India (CII) report is provided by the states/UTs in a prescribed proforma.
This data is compiled by the NCRB in the form of Crime in India, which gives complete data on incidence of crime, disposal of cases by police & courts, crimes against women, children etc.
On average, the CII report has been released by the NCRB with a delay of about 23 months since the year 1953. But the average delay since the year 2000 has gone down to 11 months.
There have been only three occasions when the report was released after a delay of five years. Since 2004, the CII report has been released every year within 12 months.
Between 2010 and 2015, this time lag was less than 10 months where as the 2016 report was released in November 2017, ie, within 11 months. For the years 2011, 2012 and 2013, the reports were released within six months.
The Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India (ADSI) report provides data on various accidental deaths & suicides in India. Though the report is being published since 1967, the month of release of this report is only available from the year 1976.
The delay in the release of the ADSI report has been decreasing over the years.
On average, the report has been released within 21 months since 1976. Since the year 2005, the report has been released within nine months on average. Both the 1979 and 1985 reports were released after a gap of 40 months, the highest for any year. Since 2010, the report has been released within nine months.
The Prison Statistics India report provides data on all prisons in India, their occupancy, details of the prisoners etc. This report is being published by the NCRB since 1995.
Till the year 2004, this report was released within 24 months on average while the average delay went down to 14 months since 2005. In fact, the average gap has reduced to less than 10 months since 2011. The 2016 report is yet to be released.
These reports provide an opportunity to governments & other stake holders to review crime and various other statistics.
For instance, the reported number of rape cases increased by over 30 percent in the year 2013, the year after the Nirbhaya incident in Delhi, possibly because of greater awareness and amendments made to the Criminal Law.
The undue delay in the release of these reports defeats the purpose of compiling them.
But strangely, both the ADSI and the Prison Statistics report for 2016 are not yet released.
(The story was initially published on FACTLY and has been republished with permission.)
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