OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence and risk factors of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients (T2DM) of North India. METHODS: It is a prospective observational study conducted at endocrinology clinic of a public tertiary care hospital in north India. Patients of either gender with greater than 18 years of age and having the diagnosis of T2DM were recruited in the study. Each and every patient had undergone fundus photography examination and data was taken from patient’s medical records. Binary logistic regression was done to assess the risk factors. RESULTS: A total of 2,006 T2DM subjects were recruited in the study with the mean age of 53.8 ± 7.88 years, and mean duration of  diabetes 10.5 ± 7.3 years, among them 505 subjects were found to have DR accounting for 25.2% (95% confidence interval (CI), 23.2-27.07) prevalence. Binary logistic regression analysis has shown that female gender (Odds ratio (OR), 1.42, CI 1.1-1.9, p = 0.01), smoking (OR, 2.1, CI 1.3-3.3, p = 0.001) and duration of diabetes OR, 1.07, CI 1.05-1.09, p <0.001) were significantly associated with increased risk of DR.  CONCLUSIONS: This study showed higher prevalence of DR in Indian population thus suggesting a need of regular eye examination.