Background We here report the demographic and clinical profile of the patients enrolled in the Indian Council of Medical Research funded Registry of people with diabetes in India with young age at onset (YDR) from 1 January 2000 to 31 July 2011. Methods The YDR registry recruits all diabetes cases (newly diagnosed or treated) reporting on or after 1 January 2000 with age of diagnosis ≤25 years, and residing within the assigned geographical area of the reporting centres. A baseline proforma was used to obtain information on demographic and clinical details at registration. Results The registry has enrolled 5546 patients (49.5% male; 50.5% female) with youth onset diabetes from 205 reporting centres linked to 8 regional collaborating centres (RCC) across India. T1DM (63.9%; n = 3545) and T2DM (25.3%; n = 1401) were the commonest variants of youth onset diabetes, though their relative proportion varied across RCCs. The mean (SD) age at diagnosis for T1DM was 12.9 (6.5) years, while that for T2DM was 21.7 (3.7) years. Nearly half the T1DM patients were registered within 6 months of the onset of disease. Most cases of T2DM (47.3%) were registered after 3 years from their date of diagnosis. 56.1% of patients had at least one episode of hospitalization at registration. Conclusion The observations from YDR registry indicate the need to establish a surveillance system in India to monitor diabetes in youth, not only to understand its complex etiology and natural history but also due to its detrimental socio economic impact.