Suicides due to unemployment highest in pandemic year 2020, Rajya Sabha told

Mukesh Ranjan

New Delhi, February 9

Amid raging debate over joblessness in the country, the government, through an official data, on Wednesday confirmed that suicides among the unemployed persons have been increasing and touched the highest (3,548) in the pandemic year of 2020, as they were 2,741 in 2018 and 2,851 in 2019.

Union Minister of State (MoS) for Home Nityanand Rai in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha said, in the last three years between 2018 and 2020 over 25,000 people died in the country by suicide due to either unemployment or indebtedness according to the data made available by National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

The Minister said the NCRB data showed that as many as 9,140 people died by suicide due to unemployment and 16,091 people due to bankruptcy or indebtedness during the tree years period.

Further giving the break-up of the three years the Minister placed on record before the House and said, according to the data, suicides among the unemployed have been increasing and touched the highest (3,548) in the pandemic year of 2020, which were 2,741 in 2018 and 2,851 did so in 2019.

According to the NCRB data, the trend in cases of deaths due to indebtedness, however, was not as that of unemployed. In 2018, as many as 4,970 died by suicide due to bankruptcy or indebtedness, as in 2019 the number increased to 5,908 and dropped to 5,213.

The issue has been raging in the public discourse with opposition parties raking it up on different platforms including the Parliament, as during the ongoing Budget Session Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attacked the government saying that unemployment in the country is the highest in the past 50 years.

He had said while the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had pulled 27 crore people out of poverty in 10 years, the NDA government under Narendra Modi had pushed 23 crore people back into poverty.

However, defending the government the MoS (Home) said the government was looking to address the issue by focusing on mental health and creating employment opportunities. “To address the burden of mental disorders, the government is implementing the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) and is supporting the implementation of the District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) under NMHP in 692 districts of the country,” he said.

“The programme aims to provide suicide prevention services, workplace stress management, life skills training and counselling in schools and colleges; mental health services including prevention, promotion and long-term continuing care at different levels of district healthcare delivery system and promote community awareness and participation in the delivery of mental healthcare services,” the Minister noted, while giving details various schemes aimed at addressing the issue of unemployment.