Family Problems, Illness Major Causes For Suicide

There were 134,799 suicides across the country in 2013, according to data released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) under Ministry of Home Affairs. That's an increase of 12% year-on-year. It also means that there were 369 suicidal deaths every day in India or 15 every hour!

Family problems is the number one reason accounting for 24% (32,325) of the total suicides followed by illness at 19.6% (26,426). Almost 89 suicides were reported each day due to family problems while 72 deaths were reported because of ill health. According to Johnson Thomas, Director of AASRA, a Mumbai based organisation, that has an helpline for people with suicidal tendencies, says that they get almost 50-55 calls a day from people in distress and that the major reasons are lack of communication and misunderstandings in relationships, students unable to handle peer pressure etc. He also highlighted the fact that suicide attempts made by females are more but go unrecorded where as males use more violent means to end life hence increasing their chances and numbers. Other categories that accounted for suicides were "Other Causes " 19.2% (25,838), Causes Not Know 15.6% (20965), Drug Abuse / Addiction 3.4% (4,591) and Love Affairs 3.3% (4,495). Three categories saw a decline in suicides rates. Poverty, property dispute and physical abuse (rape,etc) reported a fall of 18.5%, 8% and 4%, respectively. The ratio is skewed towards men as there were 248 male suicides every day in India. The overall male:female ratio of suicide victims was 67:33. Maharashtra reported the maximum suicide deaths at 16,622 followed by Tamil Nadu (16,601), Andhra Pradesh (14,607), West Bengal (13,055) and Karnataka (11266). In terms of mega cities, Chennai reported the maximum suicidal deaths at 2,450 followed by Bengaluru (2,033), Delhi (1753) and Mumbai (1322). The chart below explains the reasons for suicidal deaths in India.