In the last three years, 81 students from the IITs, IIMs, NITs, central universities and technical colleges have committed suicide. This data was shared by Minister of Human Resource Development, Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' in the Lok Sabha while replying to the questions asked by Prataprao Patil Chikhlikar, T.R. Baalu and Abdul Khaleque.
To the question on whether the Government is aware of the fact that students are committing suicides due to mental and physical harrasment in the colleges across the country including IIT, Chennai, the HRD Minister said colleges have taken various steps for overall development of students as well as to de-stress them.
"These includes establishment of Students Wellness Centre, Guidance and Counseling unit and appointment of Student Counselors, student mentors, organizing Workshops/Seminars on Happiness/ Wellness, regular sessions on Yoga, holding induction programs, extracurricular activities including sports and cultural activities etc.," said Mr Pokhriyal.
As per the data shared by the Minister, 16 students from IITs have committed suicide in the last three years.
The number of suicides in NITs is 12. 28 deaths have been recorded in various engineering colleges and there has been 21 suicide cases in central universities.
In another development, in response to a query asked by RTI activist Chandrashekhar Gaur on December 2, the MHRD said that between 2014 and 2019, seven students from IIT Madras, five from IIT-Kharagpur and three each from IIT-Delhi and IIT-Hyderabad committed suicide.
According to the information received from the RTI, no suicide case was reported during past five years at the IITs in Indore, Patna, Jodhpur, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Ropar, Mandi, Tirupati, Palakkad, Bhilai, Jammu, Goa and Dharwad.
(If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist.)
Helplines:
AASRA: 91-22-27546669 (24 hours)
Sneha Foundation: 91-44-24640050 (24 hours)
Vandrevala Foundation for Mental Health: 1860-2662-345 and 1800-2333-330 (24 hours)
iCall: 022-25521111 (Available from Monday to Saturday: 8:00am to 10:00pm)
Connecting NGO: 18002094353 (Available from 12 pm - 8 pm)
