Examine the utility and limitations of NCRB's ADSI data in shaping disaster and urban safety policy in India.

The Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) report, published annually by the National Crime Records Bureau under the Ministry of Home Affairs, is India's only continuous national count of accidental deaths, with editions digitised from 1967 to 2024 [1]. Its record of 7,874 deaths from collapse of structures during 2020–24 makes it indispensable for urban safety policy — yet insufficient by itself.

Utility for policy

• Only national time series: enables trend detection — a marginal national decline in 2024 even as Delhi's toll (169 deaths, 2020–24) rose, revealing regional divergence that state-level action must address [1].
• Disaggregation: the five sub-heads — dwelling, official/commercial, dam, bridge and others — let policymakers separate building-code enforcement from infrastructure auditing [1].
• Creates salience: dispersed, low-casualty collapses such as the Seelampur (Delhi) four-storey collapse rarely draw attention individually; aggregation converts them into a measurable governance problem [2].
• Comparative leverage: inter-state figures (Uttar Pradesh, 223 deaths) allow the Centre to nudge states on National Building Code compliance [1][3].

Limitations

• Police-report based: it counts deaths, not causes — ageing structures, illegal floor additions or substandard material remain unrecorded, making it descriptive, not diagnostic.
• Time lag: the 2024 edition became available only in 2026, weakening its preventive value.
• Narrow variables: injuries, near-misses, building age, tenancy status and structural-audit history are excluded.
• Unnormalised counts: high absolute figures often reflect population size rather than risk intensity.
• Mandate mismatch: NCRB compiles data but building safety is a municipal function under the Twelfth Schedule [4], and collapse is not squarely treated as a "disaster" under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 [5] — so no feedback loop exists.

ADSI thus supplies a signal, not a safety system. Its value multiplies if linked with municipal building-permission records, mandatory periodic structural audits of ageing buildings, and a geo-tagged incident registry maintained with NDMA. Grounding such data in the accountability framework of the 74th Amendment would convert routine statistics into preventive, life-saving urban governance.