26 Students Committed Suicide Every Day In 2016
As many as 9,474 students committed suicide in 2016--almost 26 every day--according to this reply to the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) by H G Ahir, minister of state for home affairs, on January 2, 2018.
Student suicides in the country have increased 52%--from 17 every day (6,248) in 2007 to 26 every day in 2016, data show.
Over 75,000 students have committed suicides over the last 10 years in India between 2007 and 2016.
Source: Lok Sabha/National Crime Records Bureau
Note: West Bengal did not provide data for 2012
Maharashtra reported the most--1,350--student suicides in 2016, or four every day, followed by West Bengal (1,147) and Tamil Nadu (981).
Source: Lok Sabha
Failure in examinations led to 2,413 suicides by students in 2016--or seven every day--accounting for 25% of student suicides. Over 23,000 student suicide deaths in India (30%) have been attributed to failure in examinations between 2007 and 2016.
India has one of the world's highest suicide rates for youth aged 15 to 29, according to a 2012 Lancet report, IndiaSpend reported on April 6, 2017.
"The popular perception is that failing exams or inability to cope with academics is the primary reason for student suicides," Shaibya Saldanha, co-Founder of Enfold India, an NGO which works with children and adolescents, had told IndiaSpend. "This is rooted in a sense of helplessness or extreme frustration."
(Mallapur is an analyst with IndiaSpend and FactChecker.)