The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is an Indian government agency and a national repository of information on crime and criminals, operating under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Established in January 1986 in New Delhi, the NCRB was created based on the recommendations of the Tandon Committee and the National Police Commission (1977-81). The problem it solved was the fragmentation and lack of uniformity in crime data, which was previously collected independently by state police departments. Its formation involved merging the Inter-State Criminals Data Branch, the Directorate of Coordination and Police Computer (DCPC), and the Central Finger Print Bureau of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
The NCRB's core mechanism involves collecting, collating, and analyzing crime data from all States and Union Territories, covering offenses defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL). It publishes authoritative annual reports, such as the "Crime in India" and "Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India (ADSI)" reports, which serve as the baseline for policy-making and judicial review. A key related institution is the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), which collects the raw data and sends it to the NCRB.
The NCRB is the implementing and monitoring agency for the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), a nationwide digital network approved in 2009 that connects over 15,000 police stations for real-time data sharing. A significant recent change is the launch and administration of the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) in 2022, which assigns a unique 10-digit National Fingerprint Number (NFN) to every arrested individual, linking the NAFIS database to CCTNS. Furthermore, the Crime in India 2024 report is the first to include data under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which replaced the IPC in July 2024. The BNS's reclassification of offenses, such as making simple 'Hurt' a non-cognizable offense, has impacted the overall crime statistics reported by the NCRB.