SRINAGAR: The Health and Medical Education Department has declared cancer a notifiable disease across the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in a move aimed at strengthening disease surveillance, treatment planning and public health policy.
The order, issued as S.O. 146 dated May 21, 2026, has been promulgated by the Lieutenant Governor under Section 2 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897.
According to the notification, all government, private, autonomous, cooperative and institutional hospitals, including medical college hospitals, AIIMS, ESI, railway, industrial and military hospitals, will be required to mandatorily report all diagnosed and treated cancer cases in the prescribed format.
The directive also applies to private clinics, nursing homes, hospices, AYUSH institutions, pathology and diagnostic laboratories, radiology and imaging centres, insurance companies, NGOs, registrars of births and deaths, and all other institutions maintaining cancer-related health data.
Under the order, all concerned institutions must maintain a dedicated Cancer Register to record existing as well as newly diagnosed cases from the date of issuance of the notification.
The government said the concerned Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) will be responsible for ensuring compliance and monitoring timely submission of data within their respective jurisdictions.
To facilitate reporting, the department will establish a dedicated online portal. Hospitals empanelled under the PMJAY-SEHAT scheme will be automatically registered and provided login credentials, while all other institutions will be required to self-register for data submission.
The State Cancer Institute, Government Medical College Jammu and Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura, have been designated as centres for scrutiny, validation and verification of the submitted data.
The order states that the Director of SKIMS Soura will function as the overall nodal officer and ensure regular transmission of validated data to the National Cancer Registry Programme maintained by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The government has also directed that all cancer-related data collected under the notification shall remain confidential and that personally identifiable information will not be disclosed except as permitted under law.
The implementation of the order has been entrusted to the Director SKIMS Soura, Principal Government Medical College Jammu, Director Health Services Jammu and Director Health Services Kashmir.
