A massive surge in cybercrime incidents was reported in India with fraudsters cheating people of Rs 33,165 crore in the last four years, including Rs 22,812 crore in 2024, with several Tier 2 and 3 cities identified as cybercrime hotspots, shows government data. Data compiled by the National Cyber Reporting Platform (NCRP), under the Ministry of Home Affairs, shows fraudsters cheated people of Rs 551 crore in 2021, Rs 2,306 crore in 2022, and Rs 7,496 in 2023. Data also shows that 1,37,254 complaints were received in 2021, 5,15,083 in 2022, 11,31,649 in 2023, and 17,10,505 complaints were received last year. “Domestic hotspots have been identified as Deoghar in Jharkhand, Deeg, Alwar, Jaipur, and Jodhpur in Rajasthan, Nuh in Haryana, Mathura and Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, Kolkata in West Bengal, Surat in Gujarat, Nalanda and Nawada in Bihar, Bengaluru urban in Karnataka, and Kozhikode in Kerala,” a source said. Amid the steep rise in cybercrime cases, Union Home Minister Amit Shah is learnt to have asked the Home Ministry to develop an e-FIR system, in which a citizen can file their complaint via NCRP. According to an MHA source, a meeting was held in North Block in December last week, which was chaired by Shah and attended by senior ministry officials. “Several issues, trends and measures related to cyber fraud were discussed and among other suggestions, Shah is learnt to have asked [officials] to develop an e-FIR system, so that they can provide a hassle-free system to the cyber fraud victim, who lost Rs 10 lakh or above in cyber fraud,” said the source. Multiple teams, including the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), are currently working on this and discussing it with state police as well. “In this system, they are trying to make a nationalised cyber-police station of e-FIR in the NCRP portal where apart from lodging a complaint, they can also file their e-FIR. Later, the e-FIR will be transferred to their concerned jurisdiction police station for further investigation. As of now, Delhi Police has a system of e-FIR of theft and motor vehicle theft,” the source said. In the meeting, Shah was also informed about the working online ‘suspect registry’ and in almost three months since the launch, the Centre has declined six lakh fraudulent transactions and saved Rs 1,800 crore. The registry contains data of 1.4 million cybercriminals linked to financial fraud and various cybercrimes. It was launched by Shah on September 10, and can be accessed by states and Union Territories as well as Central investigation and intelligence agencies.
