Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday took cognisance of suicides among students due to the stress of competitive exams and prodded members of the Upper House to propose a discussion on the issue.

During Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, five supplementaries were asked by members on suicides among students due to competitive exams.

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan replied to all oral supplementaries but the members continued to show their anxiousness over the issue.

Taking cognisance of the seriousness of the issue, Dhankhar said, "I appeal to the honourable members that this is an issue (in which) we must involve ourselves. We can make huge contributions." He suggested evolving an ecosystem where student suicides can be minimised and brought down to zero.

"Everyone has a role to contribute. I will be open to a discussion on this issue as the members may feel," he stated.

Earlier, replying in the House on the starred or oral questions, Pradhan informed the members that, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), there were 1,70,924 (1.70 lakh) suicides reported in 2022. Of these, suicides due to failure in examinations were 2,051 or 1.2 per cent.

"I take responsibility of this (suicides by students). This should be zero", the minister stated.

Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, in a supplementary, asked if the minister plans to incorporate data-building systems, "considering we have seen a 70 per cent rise in students committing suicides in the past decade".

The minister, quoting the 2022 NCRB data, said there is no such fact before him.

Chaturvedi stated that she had put up data in the House with "full responsibility" and talked about the last 10 years' data of the NCRB.

On this issue, Congress MP KC Venugopal said the education ministry had replied in the Rajya Sabh that from 2018 to 2021, a minimum 15 students from SC/ST/OBC communities had committed suicide in central universities, IITs and IIMs.

More than 13,000 students from SC/ST/OBC communities have dropped out from IITs, IIMs and central universities during the past five years, he stated.

Venugopal said there were caste discrimination, mental harassment or matters of students' suicides -- and asked if the government is going to take serious action on these things.

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