By Ajay Prakash | New Delhi14 hours ago
India’s rate of registering FIRs in cybercrime cases remains extremely low. Between 2019 and 2024, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) received 5.393 million complaints, but FIRs were registered in only 130,000 cases — just 2.4%.
This emerged in a report by the Rajya Sabha’s Standing Committee on Home Affairs, chaired by Dr. Radha Mohan Das Agrawal, with steps taken based on the report currently under review.
The report found that laxity in the police system laxity and flawed data collection methods mean that a large share of actual crimes never make it into official records.
The committee flagged concerns about crime statistics and law-and-order claims. It noted that follow-up on complaints made via the 1930 cyber helpline or cybercrime.gov.in is often delayed, and that jurisdictional issues between states, inadequate mechanisms for prompt investigation, and complex complaint-resolution processes are eroding victims’ trust — with women and young people worst affected.
The committee said cybercrime is not merely a technical challenge, but is also undermining public trust in digital services.
Complaints up 78-fold, FIR ratio falling
| Year | Complaints | FIRs |
| 2019 | 26,049 | 1,032 |
| 2020 | 2,55,745 | 4,999 |
| 2021 | 4,52,429 | 11,304 |
| 2022 | 10,29,026 | 21,379 |
| 2023 | 15,96,488 | 42,130 |
| 2024* | 20,33,316 | 49,582 |
*Until 28 November 2024. Source: 254th Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs.
Key details from the report
Impact: Fraud amounts in portal complaints totalled around ₹31,594 crore, with roughly 85% linked to cyber financial crimes.
Ratio: In 2019, 4% of 26,049 complaints led to FIRs. By 2024, complaints had risen 78-fold, but the FIR ratio fell to 2.4%.
Daily average: Over 332 days until November 2024, an average of 6,124 complaints came in daily, against just 149 FIRs registered per day.
The problem of many crimes missing from NCRB data
“Principal Office Rule” loophole: The committee found the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) follows a “principal office rule” — so if a woman is kidnapped, robbed, and a video is then leaked online, NCRB records it only as kidnapping, leaving out secondary data on cybercrime, harassment and robbery. This causes millions of secondary crimes to vanish entirely from national data.
States’ “Burkiya” practice: The committee objected to police issuing non-cognisable reports instead of FIRs to keep crime rates looking low — a practice under pressure from officials, known in police parlance as “burkiya,” used to conceal serious crimes and deny ordinary people justice.
Policies based on stale data: State Crime Records Bureaus (SCRBs) delay sending data to the Centre by 1.5 to 2 years, with West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Assam and Rajasthan showing the most delays. This means security budgets and policing reforms in Parliament are often based on years-old data.
Direct impact on the public: Where real crime numbers are suppressed on paper, governments fail to deploy new police stations, CCTV or security forces — leaving genuinely unsafe areas under-policed.
Recommendations for betterment
1. Introduce e-FIRs; begin multi-tagging in NCRB data
2. The Home Ministry should take punitive action against officers who fail to register FIRs
3. Implement e-FIR systems to remove human discretion
4. NCRB should adopt multi-tagging so all crimes linked to a single case are accurately counted
5. Ensure uniform complaint registration and resolution processes across states
6. Set fixed timelines for action and resolution
7. Make cybersecurity training mandatory at the entry level of police recruitment.
