The Dark Side Of Dream Merchants In Kota's Coaching Factories

Three incidents of students ending their lives at tuition centres call for interventions to ease high levels of stress among aspirants

- Mohammed Iqbal Kota

When 16yearold Deepak Dadhich, an IIT aspirant from Rajasthan's Bundi district, was found to have taken his life at his coaching centre in Kota last week, his distraught family were unable to comprehend why he had taken such an extreme step. His uncle Chandra Pralcash told The Hindu that there was no apparent reason as Deepak always had the option of joining the family's agricultural business if he was unable to crack the entrance exam.

No isolated incident

Deepak's death was not an isolated incident. Two other students of the city's coaching institutes — Jitesh Gupta, 17, from Bihar's Silvan district, attending coaching classes for the IITJEE, and NEET aspirant Diksha Singh, also 17, from Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar — ended their lives in the span of just four days. Their deaths have taken the number of student suicides this year to 19.

The numbers in 2018 are a reversal of the trend in 2017 when only seven cases were reported. However, 17 cases were reported in 2016 and 16 in 2015. About 1.5 lakh students, many from remote and small towns, live and study at around 100 private coaching institutes in Kota, considered the educational hub of Rajasthan. These students generally enrol in Class XI and spend the next two years preparing to crack the exams to enter the country's top medical and engineering colleges.

With the HT JEEMain exams scheduled for January, December is crucial for aspirants who are in the final phase of preparations.