Jump in student suicides from 2016: MHRD in Lok Sabha

In the lower house of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha), the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) offered data on the number of student suicides in the country. It revealed that suicide cases have increased from 2016 to 2018. In the year 2018 only, the number of suicides cases was 10, 159. The HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ shared the data with the Parliament. As per the data shared, the figure has risen from 9,478 deaths in 2016 and 9,905 deaths in 2017. The MHRD had taken into consideration the data provided by the National Crime Records Bureau.

The members of Parliament who asked the questions had especially demanded data on the Karur district of Tamil Nadu and data by the students background – if they were from a downtrodden category. But the MHRD stated that district-wise and category-wise data was not available.

Director of suicide prevention helpline Aasra – Johnson Thomas had informed that approximately 60 per cent of callers on the helpline were students.

Maharashtra leads in students suicides

In Maharashtra only, 1,448 students died by suicide in 2018, the most in any state. The state has also become the only state consisting of more than 1,000 deaths in a year and it has grown. In the year 2016, Maharashtra witnessed 1,350 student suicides in 2016, which grew to 1,437 in 2017. Maharashtra is followed by Tamil Nadu with 953, and Madhya Pradesh with 862 suicides in 2018.

The North-Eastern states have witnessed the lowest numbers of suicides with the minimum being in Nagaland with four, followed by Mizoram with six and Manipur with 14. Nagaland has witnessed a drop in suicides since 2016. The state witnessed eight suicides in 2016 and five in 2017. Coming to the Union Territories, Delhi had the most suicides with 203 while Lakshadweep reported none.

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