Twenty-seven students across 10 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in the country have committed suicide in the last five years, a reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query has revealed.
As per the data from the Department of Higher Education, under the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), IIT Madras tops the list, with seven students committing suicide during this period.
In the reply to a query asked by RTI activist Chandrashekhar Gaur on December 2, the MHRD said between 2014 and 2019, seven students from IIT Madras, five from IIT Kharagpur and three each from IIT Delhi and IIT Hyderabad committed suicide.
Two students each from IIT Bombay, IIT Guwahati and IIT Roorkee also ended their lives during this period, it said.
During this period, one student each from Varanasi’s IIT (BHU), IIT (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad and IIT Kanpur took the extreme step.
Measures taken
No reply was given to the query which sought to know the reasons behind the IIT students’ suicides. When asked about the measures taken to prevent student suicides, the reply said, “Systems are in place to take action with regard to complaints received from students, which include Student Grievance Cells, Counselling Centres, etc.”