IIT suicides, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH Panel to UNDERTAKE A STUDY

Panel to study suicides at IITs TNN Sep 26, 2011, 12.46am IST Tags: Suicides in IITs| National Institute of Mental Health MUMBAI: The central government has set up a task force to study stress levels among students on Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses and find out what pushes them to suicide. When it met recently, the IIT council, which is the highest decision making body of the institute, concurred that the committee must be headed by a senior doctor, like the director of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nimhans). "The task force would analyse the issue threadbare, study the present situation in the IITs, review the support systems available, and suggest measures which can be undertaken to address the situation," an official from the Human Resource and Development (HRD) Ministry said. The task force will include students, alumni, deans, parents and teachers. The need for such a body was being felt increasingly as the steps taken to address the problem so far, including measures to de-stress students, did not prove sufficient to check the number of suicides, the official said. Studies have suggested that most students took such extreme measure either due to stress-related disorders or depression. Then, there were some who could not cope with the rising academic expectations. In recent years, cases of suicides have been reported from several IIT campuses - the latest one being from IIT Patna on September 1. where a 20-year-old girl from Andhra Pradesh allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the roof of her hostel as she was depressed with her performance in the elite institute. IIT-Bombay had recorded its last suicide in 2009. The last such case at IIT-Bombay was in 2009. Institute /Year ---------- Number of cases IIT-Kanpur 2008 --------- 2 2009 -------- 1 2010 -------- 1 IIT-Kharagpur 2009 ---- 2 2011 ---- 1 IIT-Madras 2008 ----- 3 2010 ----- 1 2011 ----- 2 IIT-Bombay 2009 ----- 1 IIT-Delhi 2011 ---- 1 Ads by Google Lodha Supremus, Worli