India has reported a 3.4% increase suicide cases in 2019, with a distraught person killing himself every four minutes in the country. Shockingly, five states -- Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka -- alone account for 49.5% of the suicides in the country.
Altogether, 1,39,123 people, including 41,493 women and 17 transgenders, took their own lives last year compared to 1,34,516 in 2018.
While the number of suicides in the country had decreased in 2016 (1.31 lakh) and 2017 (1.29 lakh), the numbers have shown an increase in the past two years. In 2015, the figures stood at 1.33 lakh.
In 1967 when the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) started collating reports on suicides, there were 38,829 suicides, including 16,192 women.
According to the 'Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2019' report, Maharashtra had the highest number of suicides at 18,916 followed by Tamil Nadu (13,493) and West Bengal (12,665). Madhya Pradesh with 12,457 and Karnataka with 11,288 cases were the other states in the top five.
Among the 53 mega cities with over 10 lakh population, Chennai (2,461), Delhi City (2,423), Bengaluru (2,081) and Mumbai (1,229) have reported higher numbers of suicides. These four cities together have reported almost 36.6% (22,390) of the total suicides.
Bengaluru City has shown a slight decline during 2019 over 2018 when 2,082 suicides were reported. Chennai has shown an increase of 17.1% (from 2,102 suicides to 2,461 suicides), Mumbai 4.7% (from 1,174 suicides to 1,229 suicides) and Delhi City has observed an increase of 2.3% (from 2,369 suicides to 2,423 suicides)
"Each suicide is a personal tragedy that prematurely takes the life of an individual and has a continuing ripple effect, dramatically affecting the lives of families, friends and communities," the report said.
Since 2008, 15.98 lakh people have taken their lives owing to various reasons like family problems, illness, career problems, sense of isolation, abuse, violence, family problems, mental disorders, addiction to alcohol, financial loss and chronic pain among others.
The 2019 figures also reinforce the trend that the poorest sections of the society take the extreme step the most.
Two-third of the total suicides in the country in 2019 were by those with an annual income of less than Rs one lakh, which meant the victims earned less than Rs 8,300 a month.
Last year saw 92,083 people (66.18% of 1.39 lakh) with an annual income less than Rs one lakh died by suicide.
Among the poorest victims, Tamil Nadu had the highest number of suicides at 9,723 followed by West Bengal 9,636, Karnataka (7,029) and Maharashtra (4,521).
While the 2019 figure for such people is more than that of 2018 (88,986 or 66.2%) and 2017 (84,934 or 65.4%), it has not crossed the 2016 numbers when India recorded 92,732 (70.8%) such incidents.
When it comes to people having an income of Rs one lakh to Rs five lakh, there were 41,497 people who took their own life while there were 4,824 with an annual income between Rs five lakh and ten lakh who died by suicide.
The number of people with more than Rs 10 lakh annual income was 1,089 with West Bengal topping the list with 218 cases followed by Telangana (180) and Haryana (152). Karnataka had 24 such cases.
When it comes to educational status, the number of people with higher qualifications was very less.
Only 335 professionals, including MBAs, committed suicide in 2019 compared to 403 in the previous year. However, the number of graduates and above rose to 5,185 from 4,447 and 4,027 in 2018 and 2017 respectively.
Those who had studied between Class VIII and Class X had the highest number at 32427 (31,757 in 2018) followed by 27,323 (26,252) in Class V-VII category, 22,469 (23,048) in Class 1-IV and 17,588 (17,026) with no education at all.
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