BACKGROUND To determine the prevalence and pattern of cavitated carious lesions in primary dentition in children below 5 years of age in Sirsa, Haryana. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the status of dental caries in primary dentition and compute data for planning anticipatory programs in children aged less than 5 years. METHODS The study was conducted among children attending the outpatient department of pedodontics, JCD Dental College, Sirsa, Haryana (India) from April to December 2014. METHODS This study consisted of 576 children of both sexes (311 males and 265 females) up to 5 years of age. Dentition status and treatment proforma (WHO, 1997) was used to assess the prevalence of cavitated carious lesions. Selection of children for the study was done by simple random sampling method. METHODS Chi-square test and t-test were used to compute data for statistical analysis. RESULTS 33.85% of children in the study population showed presence of cavitated carious lesions. Males showed slightly higher prevalence of cavitated carious lesions than females (P = 0.35). Incidence of caries was higher in mandibular arch in both the sexes (males P = 0.9, females P = 0.7) and in posterior teeth (both sex wise and arch wise). Higher caries prevalence was noticed in maxillary anterior teeth (P = 0.04) and mandibular posterior teeth (P = 0.7). Primary second molars showed highest caries prevalence (P = 0.39) in both the arches and sexes. CONCLUSIONS The mean prevalence of cavitated carious lesions in primary dentition was found to be 33.85%. Males were more affected than females. Mandibular molars and maxillary anterior teeth were the predominantly affected teeth. Mandibular anterior teeth were least affected. The increase in incidence of cavitated carious lesions shows that there is necessity of implementing dental health awareness programs and modifications in types of food consumed are needed to eliminate the cause of decay.