NCRB: 14,488 students died by suicide in 2024, Maharashtra tops list
Student suicides in 2024 were about 80 per cent higher than in 2014 and the highest in 10 years, the National Crime Records Bureau report says.
Concern over students' mental health in the country continues to grow. According to a recently released report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), cases of student suicide have risen sharply over the past decade.
The report says 14,488 students died by suicide across the country in 2024. The figure is about 80 per cent higher than in 2014 and the highest in the past 10 years. A serious debate on academic pressure, competitive examinations and pressure at home has begun once again.
According to NCRB data, a total of 1,23,918 students died by suicide across the country in the 11 years from 2014 to 2024. Of these, about 17,000 cases came from Maharashtra alone, the highest. Uttar Pradesh is second, with a figure of about 10,000. The report says Maharashtra has remained the country's top state on this count for many years.
The report says Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu together account for about half of all student suicide cases in the country. It found that most of these cases are linked to areas with large coaching hubs. These include Kota in Rajasthan, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, where lakhs of students from across the country come to prepare for competitive examinations.
The NCRB report names family problems as the biggest cause of student suicides. Failure in examinations is second. In 2024, 2,032 suicides were due to examination failure alone, about 14 per cent of all student suicides recorded that year.
Over the past ten years, the sharpest rise came between 2019 and 2020, when cases went up by 21.2 per cent. Only 2022 saw a slight fall in cases in these 10 years. In addition, more than 10,295 children below 18 years of age died by suicide in 2024. The report says this shows the problem is not limited to college or older students and runs deep among schoolchildren too.
In view of the growing problem, the Union government launched the National Suicide Prevention Strategy in 2022. Its aim is to bring down the suicide rate in the country by 10 per cent by 2030. In coaching hubs such as Kota, the administration has also started facilities such as counselling centres, helpline numbers and regular mental health check-ups, so that students living under pressure get support in time.
