India National Cancer Control Programme

India's National Cancer Control Programme, known by the initials NCCP, was initiated in 1975 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in response to the growing threat cancer posed to public health. The programme initially focused on prevention, education and expanding detection and diagnosis resources, was revised between 1984 and 1985 to sharpen its focus on primary prevention and early detection, was decentralized to the district level between 1990 and 1991, and received its last revision in 2005; along the way it established the National Cancer Registry Programme in 1982, helped create 27 cancer centres and 85 additional oncology programmes in medical schools, and put in place policies on tobacco control, obesity, alcohol use and physical activity, alongside breast and cervical cancer screening at public health centres, even as accessibility, availability and affordability of cancer care resources remained ongoing challenges. It is distinct from India's newer National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke, launched in 2010, which broadened and absorbed much of the NCCP's cancer-control work into a wider noncommunicable disease programme.