To Fight Cancer, Count It: Making Cancer Notifiable

Source: Original editorial ↗ The Indian Express

The Lift Line

“What a health system does not count, it cannot plan for.”

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

A column in The Indian Express of 6 October 2026, by the chairperson of the Indian Cancer Society’s Delhi Branch, takes up the Supreme Court’s push to make cancer a notifiable disease in every State. It is an excellent example of a GS2 health-governance question that combines federalism (health is a State subject), evidence-based policy (data for planning), digital public infrastructure (the CoWIN model) and data protection. We covered the case for notification in a July 2026 editorial; this column comes after the Court’s August order and focuses on how to do it.

GS Paper 2: Issues relating to the development and management of the social sector and services relating to health; government policies and interventions. GS Paper 3: Awareness in IT (digital health).

Background and Context

What “notifiable” means. A notifiable disease is one that hospitals, doctors and laboratories must, by law, report to public health authorities. It is common for infectious diseases, where reporting helps contain outbreaks. Cancer is non-communicable, but notification is about data for planning, not contagion. Snakebite, also non-communicable, was made notifiable at the Centre’s request in 2024.

Background: the court case.

Date	Development
12 December 2025	Supreme Court seeks responses on a PIL by Dr Anurag Srivastava, a former head of surgical disciplines at AIIMS, New Delhi, seeking nationwide notification and a real-time digital cancer registry
April 2026	Telangana declares cancer notifiable
11 August 2026	In the order that sets the context for this column, a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana asks the 19 remaining States and UTs to consider the recommendations of a parliamentary standing committee and decide; compliance affidavits to be filed. 17 of 36 had already notified cancer

How India counts cancer today. The National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP), run by ICMR’s National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research (NCDIR), Bengaluru, gathers data through population-based and hospital-based cancer registries. These cover only a part of the population, so national figures are partly modelled estimates. ICMR has projected new cases to rise from about 13.9 lakh in 2020 to about 15.7 lakh in 2025.

The Analysis

1. The door is open; States should walk through. The writer urges the States to respect the Court’s order “in its full sense” and begin without delay. States that have already notified offer lessons.

2. Uniformity is the missing piece. Differences in reporting and use of data make a national picture hard to build. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare should set:

Element	Purpose
Standard minimum dataset	Same core fields reported everywhere
Common definitions and timelines	Data comparable across States and years
Uniform safeguards	Same privacy protection for every patient
Compliance rules	Clear duties for hospitals and laboratories
Training and transition period	Help smaller providers adjust

3. Notification and registries work together. Notification gives timely information on diagnosed cases; registries validate, enrich and analyse it to understand incidence, patterns and trends. Linked with health-system data, the two can reveal geographic patterns, high-risk populations, delays and dropouts in treatment, and where more staff, diagnostics or financial support are needed.

4. Data drives planning. How many hospitals does a district need? Where should specialised cancer services go? How much radiotherapy, how many medicines? The writer argues these decisions should follow disease burden and population need, which requires data to flow from every level, including small hospitals and diagnostic centres.

5. A digital backbone, built for longitudinal data. CoWIN showed that India can run national digital public-health infrastructure. Cancer needs a different architecture: records that follow a patient over years, interoperability with hospital, laboratory and registry systems, and the ability to work where connectivity is poor.

6. Privacy is non-negotiable. Cancer data is deeply personal. Any national system must protect access, privacy and cybersecurity, with clear rules on permitted uses, identifiable data and anonymisation.

7. Expect the numbers to rise. Better notification will find cases that were outside formal records. An initial rise should not be read as a sudden increase in cancer; it means India is seeing the problem more clearly.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

Constitution:

• Public health and sanitation; hospitals and dispensaries: Entry 6, State List.
• Prevention of the spread of infectious or contagious diseases from one State to another: Entry 29, Concurrent List.

Institutions and programmes:

• National Cancer Registry Programme: run by ICMR-NCDIR, Bengaluru; population-based (PBCR) and hospital-based (HBCR) registries.
• NP-NCD: National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (formerly NPCDCS).
• Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission: national digital health ecosystem with the ABHA health account number.
• Indian Cancer Society: founded in 1951; completes 75 years in 2026.

Law:

• Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 governs digital personal data, including health data.

The order (context for the column):

• 11 August 2026: SC asks 19 States and UTs to consider notification; 17 of 36 had notified.

⚠️ Watch the trap: Cancer is not a communicable disease, yet it can be made notifiable: notification is a legal reporting duty, not a sign of contagion. And since health is a State subject, notification so far has been done State by State; the Court asked States to consider it, it did not itself make cancer notifiable nationwide.

The Debate

For the writer’s view. India plans cancer care on estimates drawn from registries that cover a part of the population. Notification, with uniform national rules, would give real, timely data on every diagnosis. The Court has asked for it, the parliamentary committee has recommended it, and seventeen States and UTs have already shown it can be done.

The other side. Notification adds a reporting burden on hospitals and laboratories, many of them small and private, and data is useful only if it is complete and accurate. A centrally designed system could strain federal relations in a State subject. A national database of cancer patients is also an attractive target for breaches and misuse, for example by insurers or employers.

The balanced verdict. The benefits are large if the system is simple, uniform and secure. The Centre should set standards and fund capacity while States implement; reporting should be built into existing hospital and laboratory software so it costs little effort; and strict rules on access and anonymisation must come first, not later.

How to Think About This

Data is infrastructure. In health answers, students often list hospitals, doctors and money. This column shows a prior step: you cannot allocate resources well without knowing where the disease is. Use the phrase “from estimates to evidence” and pair it with two cautions: privacy by design and the counting paradox, where better surveillance makes a problem look worse before policy makes it better. The same logic applies to tuberculosis, maternal deaths, road accidents and crime statistics.

Diagram-in-Words

Takeaway Box

• Thesis: make every cancer diagnosis count, with uniform national rules and strong privacy.
• Order: on 11 August 2026, the SC asked the 19 remaining States and UTs to consider notification; 17 of 36 had notified.
• Centre’s role: standard minimum dataset, common definitions and timelines, safeguards, compliance rules, training, a digital backbone.
• Model: CoWIN’s scale, with a different architecture for long-term, interoperable, private records.
• Caution: numbers may rise at first because counting improves, not because cancer suddenly does.

Sources: The Indian Express, column, 6 October 2026; background: Onmanorama, 11 August 2026

Source: To Fight Cancer, Count It: Making Cancer Notifiable — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis

Key Arguments at a Glance

The Supreme Court has asked the 19 States and Union Territories that have not yet made cancer a notifiable disease to consider doing so. The writer argues that States should act promptly, and that the Union Health Ministry should frame common national guidelines so that notification produces comparable, usable data while protecting privacy.

✓ Supporting

• Without common rules, differences in how States report and use cancer data make it hard to build a comparable national picture; the Ministry should set a standard minimum dataset, common definitions and timelines, uniform safeguards and compliance rules.
• Notification gives timely information on diagnosed cases, while cancer registries validate, enrich and analyse it; together they show where cancer occurs, who is affected and where the health system falls short.
• Decisions on hospitals, specialists, diagnostics, radiotherapy and medicines should rest on disease burden; reliable data also helps governments and industry anticipate demand.
• CoWIN showed that India can run digital public-health infrastructure at national scale; cancer notification needs a different architecture, for long-term records, interoperability and privacy, but the same ambition.

⚠ Counter

Health is a State subject, so a central mandate may be resisted. Smaller hospitals and laboratories may find reporting a burden without training and support.
Cancer data is deeply personal and a breach could cause harm. And notification may at first make cancer appear to be rising, which could be misread.

→ Way Forward

States should begin notification without delay; the Centre should provide national guidelines, training, technical assistance, a practical transition period and a common interoperable digital system that works with poor connectivity. Data protection must be non-negotiable, with clear rules on identifiable data and anonymisation, and the public should be told that an initial rise in numbers reflects better counting.