HYDERABAD: Telangana has the third-highest suicide rate among all states in the country, according to the latest Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The ADSI data, released by the NCRB after a span of three years, pertain to the year 2016.
According to the report, the suicide rate — number of suicides per one lakh population — of Telangana is 24.5, with the state recording 9,019 suicides in 2016. The two states on top are Sikkim, with a suicide rate of 40.5, and Chhattisgarh (25.8).
It is mostly the poor and less-literate people who committed suicide, the data show. According to the report, 6,086 people, or around 67 per cent of those who committed suicide, were earning less than `1 lakh per annum, and 2,719, or around 30 per cent, of them were illiterate.As many as 2,824 daily wage labourers committed suicide in Telangana that year, the third-highest after Tamil Nadu (4,888) and Maharashtra (3,168).
While it is ominous that the state’s suicide rate is the third highest in the country, when compared to the data for 2015, however, the suicide rate decreased by 11.1 per cent, as 10,140 suicides were recorded that year.
While most suicides in the state have been attributed to family problems (2,029), among the various causes that the NCRB lists, the state peculiarly leads when it comes to suicides due to ‘property disputes’ and ‘fall in social reputation’, at 366 and 272 respectively.
The number of suicides due to poverty and bankruptcy/indebtedness is the third-highest, at 125 and 354 respectively. Also, the state recorded the third-highest number of suicides due to professional/career problems at 240, after Maharashtra (305) and Tamil Nadu (295). It may be mentioned here that the state recorded the second-highest number of suicides by professionals at 41, after Tamil Nadu (86). While failure in examinations was recorded as the cause of suicide in 81 cases, the state recorded suicides by 349 students that year. Most of the suicides were committed by poisoning (2,835).