New Raj guidelines aim to curb suicides in Kota

A mandatory screening test, the alphabetical sorting of students into sections instead of a ranking-based one, and the admission of students who are in Class IX or higher are some of the guidelines notified on Thursday by the Rajasthan government to prevent deaths by suicide in Kota’s coaching centres. There have been 25 such deaths in Kota thus far this year

- Senjuti Sengupta

The guidelines also mandate the creation of monitoring centres in Kota and Sikar, major coaching centres in the state, and a portal to house “all relevant data studying in coaching institutes”.

And they prescribe legal action against faculty of coaching institutes if they violate any of the regulations. Though no details of the legal actions were mentioned in the guidelines, the committee said, “Such violation that may severely affect the students’ mental health will be considered as a criminal act and the district administration will take necessary legal action against it.”

HT has seen a copy of the guidelines that have been notified. The guidelines are based on the recommendations of a 15-member committee headed by education secretary Bhawani Singh Detha that was set up following a spate of deaths by suicide in Kota.

An analysis by HT in late August found that more than half the deaths by suicide were of minors, and that many were from families that are either poor or part of the lower middle-class. HT first reported on some of the recommendations of the committee on September 16.

Every year, tens of thousands of young people from India’s hinterland pour into the Rajasthan town, whose famed institutes preparing students for medical and engineering entrance examinations constitute a ₹10,000 crore industry. These residential institutes represent a real shot at material prosperity and economic mobility for poor families but this also translates into inhuman pressure and stress on teenagers struggling to stay afloat in an intensely competitive environment away from home.