Overview
- The state Public Health Department has made cancer reportable and has designated the Directorate of Health Services’ Non‑Communicable Disease Cell as the nodal authority to build or designate a State Cancer Registry.
- Under the notification, public and private hospitals, clinics, diagnostic labs, day‑care oncology centres, hospices and screening programmes must notify new cancer diagnoses preferably within seven days and in any case within one month of diagnosis.
- Officials and experts say the change aims to close major surveillance gaps because India’s national registry covers only about 16% of the population while national estimates show rising incidence and deaths from cancer.
- The notification does not itself create new financial aid or reduced treatment costs for patients, and any subsidy or insurance changes would require separate government decisions.
- The move follows a Parliamentary committee recommendation and Supreme Court directions to states and is likely to increase pressure on other states and the Centre to adopt uniform notification and strengthen cancer surveillance.