Following a spate of applicants' suicides, authorities in Rajasthan's Kota district have ordered coaching facilities to halt administering routine exams to students preparing for the NEET and other competitive exams for the next two months.
Every year, more than two lakh students relocate to Kota to study for competitive tests like the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for medical school entrance and the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) for engineering.
Authorities report that 22 students in the district who were studying for competitive examinations have taken their own deaths so far in 2023, the most of any year. The amount was 15 the previous year.
On Sunday, two students took their own lives within a four-hour period.
Around 3.15 p.m., Avishkar Shambaji Kasle (17), who had just completed a mock NEET exam, leaped from the sixth story of the coaching center's Jawahar Nagar building, according to the police.
Around 7 o'clock in the evening, Adarsh Raj (18), who was also studying for the competitive exam, hanged himself in his rented apartment near the Kunhadi police station, they claimed.
The two most recent suicides were caused by the applicants feeling pressured to perform poorly on routine examinations given by coaching facilities, it seems.
In a directive issued Sunday night, Kota District Collector OP Bunkar directed coaching facilities to suspend administering standard exams for the following two months.
He said that orders had been given to offer students "mental support."
