40 IIT students dead in 2.5 years: Why mental health guidelines failed

At least 40 students across 15 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have died by suicide in the two-and-a-half years since the Union government issued guidelines aimed at preventing such deaths, raising questions about the effectiveness and monitoring of the measures.

Data highlights and campus trends

As per a report by the Telegraph, data obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI) reveal that IIT Kanpur recorded the highest number of cases during this period, with nine deaths, followed by IIT Kharagpur with eight. The figures form part of a broader trend that has seen 67 student suicides reported across IIT campuses between 2021 and 2025. One additional death has already been recorded this year at IIT Kanpur.

The data was obtained by Dheeraj Singh, founder of the Global IIT Alumni Support Group and a former student of IIT Kanpur. His assessment points to repeated delays in institutional response and inadequate oversight, with deaths often being attributed to personal or academic stress without deeper examination.

Academic stress, lack of accountability

According to Singh’s analysis, many students enter IITs after spending two or more years in intense coaching programmes to clear the highly competitive entrance examination, only to find themselves overwhelmed by the academic demands of the engineering curriculum once admitted.

Annual figures show nine suicides in 2021, followed by 14 each in 2022, 2023 and 2024, before rising to 16 in 2025. Singh has argued that the persistence of such numbers despite the existence of a national framework highlights unresolved issues of accountability, including who is responsible for ensuring compliance, evaluating outcomes and intervening when warning signs emerge.

On Thursday, the education ministry constituted a committee to investigate the unusually high number of suicides at IIT Kanpur.

Guidelines issued, compliance promised — but questions remain

In July 2023, the Union education ministry had issued guidelines to all higher educational institutions focusing on students’ emotional and mental wellbeing as a key suicide prevention measure. Following an IIT Council meeting earlier that year, the institutes agreed to increase the number of professional counsellors on campus and ensure that every student interacts with a counsellor for at least a brief session each semester.

The guidelines also stressed the importance of regular, informal interaction among students and between students and faculty to help identify those at risk at an early stage, and called for campuses to maintain inclusive and non-discriminatory environments. However, official data on the caste background of students who died by suicide have not been made available.

The director of IIT Kharagpur Suman Chakraborty had voiced deep alarm over what he termed as the “marketing” of student deaths, especially on social media, in September.