Page No 98-106
Tarun Kumar Sharma
Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
Suicide is a serious matter of concern impacting the public health scenario, not only
for India but at the global level. Among young adults, suicide is the fourth leading cause
of death. This paper details the implications of a RUSA-2.0 research project aimed to
understand and address the issue of student suicides reported in Kota city in Rajasthan,
India. The status of suicides in Kota is discussed followed by the causes identified and
suggested preventive strategies. Dummy Schooling, severe academic stress and
loneliness, shortage of appropriate infrastructure and resources for mental health care,
reluctance for mental help seeking, substance abuse, batch segregation policy at
coaching institutes, unrealistic self assessment of students, burden of loans and
mortgages on parents and social belief systems are the prominent reasons that cause
anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation among students. The paper also provides
certain policy inputs to augment mental healthcare infrastructure by allocating sufficient
budget for mental health infrastructure and manpower. Awareness and motivation for
using the suicide prevention help-lines is also needed. Improving teacher-student/
counselor-student ratio to facilitate the formation of mentor-mentee relationships is
also mandatory. More heterogeneous and inclusive batches should be formed at
institutes. Media must follow the guidelines on publishing the suicide related news.
Targeted intervention programmes for ‘suicide cluster’ cities must be developed by
experts. Suicide gate-keeper training is crucial to identify suicidal signals or hints