National Youth Day: 133 Young People Aged 18–30 Are Committing Suicide Everyday In India

It is often said that more information is hidden than what is told. If you look at the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) year 2019 data on suicides in this context, it seems to be accurate. It doesn’t matter how you look at it. Actually, 12 January is the birthday of Swami Vivekananda which is celebrated as National Youth Day. It seems that the government wants to do a lot for the youth, but if you look carefully at the statistics of suicide, you will know towards which point the youth of the country is going.

According to the NCRB, due to the financial constraints, the number of people who take their lives is increasing and there is a large share of young Indians in it.

According to the latest figures, of the total 1,39,123 suicides reported in 2019 (an alarming increase of 3.4% over the previous year), 2,851 people did so due to unemployment. Of this, 1,366 or 48% were 18–30 years old and 1,055 or about 30% of the youth were aged 30–40 years.

Statistics also show that out of the overall suicides in the country, 35.1% of them were aged between 18-30 years and 31.8% of people between the age of 30-45 years. They died due to poverty, unemployment, and financial crisis. In simple terms, 133 people between 18-30 and 121 people between 30-45 years of age are taking their lives every day. On the other hand, family problems, (2,468), failure in examination (1,577), courtship (1,297), and sickness (923) were the main causes of suicide among children below the age of 18.

Young boys and girls aged 18-30 years commit the most suicide in Maharashtra (13,816), Uttar Pradesh (12,850), and Madhya Pradesh (12,109) while the least young commit suicide in Sikkim (75), Nagaland (19), and Arunachal Pradesh (105).

According to experts, every minute 1.3 crore Indians are considering suicide. According to the Mental Health Survey 2015–16 conducted by VIMHANS with the Ministry of Health, about 1 percent of the population of the country has a high suicidal risk. The same survey shows that the highest number of people considering suicide live in urban areas, 1.7 percent. Then comes the number of widowed/divorced people and the poorest section, where this figure reaches 1.5 percent. Then comes the number of less-educated people, 1.3 percent, then the figure reaches 1.2 percent in the age group of 40–49 years and then 1.1 percent is the number of women who are considering to end their lives.