NEET Aspirant Dies by Suicide at Kota Hostel Taking Toll to 24 This Year – News18

A student from Jharkhand who was preparing for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) at a coaching centre in Rajasthan’s Kota has died by suicide. As per reports, the girl was found dead in her hostel room. This brings the total number of student suicides this year in Kota alone to 24. This is the highest recorded suicide rate reported in the Kota district over the past eight years.

Every year, thousands of students from all over the nation relocate to Kota, a city known for its educational excellence, to train for competitive examinations like NEET and JEE. Unfortunately, there has been a surge in the number of students who take their own lives after failing to manage the pressure and stress.

To deter students from taking extreme measures, the Kota hostel management had previously ordered all hostels and paying guests facilities to install spring-loaded fans and “anti-suicide nets” in the students’ rooms. Owners of hostels contend that by taking these measures, their facilities will be “suicide-proof.”

Deputy Commissioner O P Bunkar responded to a question regarding whether such measures in hostels and PGs can assist in addressing the more general problem of student stress by saying, “We are taking several measures, right from routine psychological tests of children to effective communication with parents.”

Earlier last month, two NEET aspirants died by suicide in separate instances in Kota within four hours of each other. Around 3.15 pm, 17-year-old Avishkar Shambaji Kasle died by jumping from the 6th floor of the coaching centre’s building in Jawahar Nagar, and around 7 pm, 18-year-old Adarsh Raj hung himself in his rented home. No suicide notes were found in either of the student’s rooms, confirmed by the authorities.

Exams at coaching institutes in Kota were postponed for two months as soon as this news broke in order to give the students who were staying there mental assistance and protection. Around 3 lakh students from throughout the nation are actively studying for various competitive examinations in the city’s numerous institutions, and last year, fifteen coaching students died by suicide there.

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