National Commission for Minorities

The Union Government set up the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992. Six religious communities, viz; Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians (Parsis) have been notified in Gazette of India as minority communities by the Union Government all over India. Original notification of 1993 was for five religious communities; Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Christians and Muslims, later in 2014, Jains community was also added. As per Census 2001, these six communities consists of 18.8% of the country's population.