E-Paper
61 IIT, IIM, NIT students have died by suicide since 2018: Govt tells Parliament
Minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar shared the data in parliament on Monday that showed 11 cases of suicide were reported in 2018, 16 in 2019, five in 2020, and nine in 2021
As many as 61 students from premier educational institutes such as Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) have died by suicide over the last five years, the government has told parliament. A bulk of them (33) were from IITs, followed by NITs (24) and IIMs (four).
Minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar shared the data in parliament on Monday that showed 11 cases of suicide were reported in 2018, 16 in 2019, five in 2020, and nine in 2021.
He was responding to a question from Congress members Pradyut Bordoloi, Gaurav Gogoi, Benny Behanan, K Muraleedharan, Rajmohan Unnithan, TN Prathapan, and Dean Kuriakose on whether the government has identified the reasons behind suicides and steps taken to tackle them.
“The reasons identified behind such issues include academic stress, family reasons, personal reasons, mental health issues, etc,” Sarkar told the parliament. “The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has provisions for counselling systems for handling stress and emotional adjustments in Institutions.”
Sarkar said higher educational institutions have been conducting workshops/ seminars as part of a series of measures to destress students. “...students, wardens and caretakers are sensitised to bring to notice the signs of depression in fellow students to the authorities so that timely clinical consultation may be provided.”
