NCRB names Kolkata India’s safest city: List of top 10 safest and most unsafe cities

Kolkata has once again emerged as the safest city in India for the fourth year running, recording the lowest rate of cognisable crimes in 2023, as per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The data was recorded on 19 metropolitan cities such as Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune and Surat.

According to the NCRB report, Kolkata recorded 83.9 cognisable offences per lakh population in 2023, lowest among the 19 Indian cities with populations above 20 lakh that the bureau surveyed.

Among these metropolises, cities reporting the highest charge-sheeting rate under IPC crimes are Kochi (97.2 per cent), Kolkata (94.7 per cent) and Pune (94.0 per cent), the data said.

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NCRB said the average rate of cognisable offences across the 19 cities in 2023 was 828 per lakh. The bureau also noted a decline in Kolkata’s crime rate over the past two years: 86.5 in 2022 and 103.5 in 2021.

Here’s a list of top 10 safest cities in India 

City	Cognisable crimes per lakh population
Kolkata	83.9
Hyderabad	332.3
Pune	337.1
Mumbai	355.4
Coimbatore	409.7
Chennai	419.8
Kanpur	449.1
Ghaziabad	482.6
Bengaluru	806.2
Ahmedabad	839.3

Top 10 unsafe cities in India 

Kochi (Kerala)	3192.4
Delhi	2105.3
Surat	1377.1
Jaipur	1276.8
Patna	1149.5
Indore	1111.0
Lucknow	1015.9
Nagpur	962.2
Kozhikode	886.4
Ahmedabad	839.3

Ahmedabad falls at the border between safe/unsafe group.

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The NCRB compiles statistics from police records submitted by states and union territories; its figures therefore reflect reported and recorded cognisable offences. Analysts say such data are useful for comparisons and trends but note they depend on uniform reporting and registration practices across jurisdictions.