The ICMR-NCDIR was an institution, the National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research, a permanent institute under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which itself is an autonomous body under the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. The institute was set up in Bangalore in 2011 to utilize information science for health research. Its core purpose was to address the problem of insufficient data for planning and evaluating control programs for major diseases.
The Centre's mechanism involves sustaining and developing a national research database on cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and stroke. It works through a Disease Informatics approach, tracking and analyzing data from various sources to provide an integrated view on these health conditions. A key function is coordinating the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP), which was initiated by the ICMR in 1981 and operates through a network of Population Based Cancer Registries (PBCRs) and Hospital Based Cancer Registries (HBCRs) across the country. The data collected estimates cancer incidence, mortality, and survival, which directly informs cancer screening and treatment guidelines.
The institution connects directly to the ICMR and the Ministry of Health, Government of India, providing baseline information and technical help for designing and monitoring control programs.
The most significant recent change is that ICMR-NCDIR has been renamed to ICMR - National Institute of NCD Epidemiology (ICMR-NINE). This change was made to better reflect its expanded role in Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) epidemiology and its committed vision to inform actions on NCD prevention and control. However, its main objective of maintaining the national research database on cancer, diabetes, CVD, and stroke remains the same.