Chennai, Bangalore still suicide capitals

But nationwide cases show decline

Chennai and Bangalore have once again held the dubious distinction of being the suicide capitals of the country. 

A fresh government report shows a rise in such incidents in these cities, even as the country displays a declining trend.

Prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and made public on Monday, the “Accident Deaths and Suicides in India 2013” report showed that overall suicides decreased to 1,34,799 last year from 1,35,445 in 2012. This means that every fourth minute in 2013 a person ended his or her life.

However, as per the figures for 53 mega cities with a population of more than 10 lakh, such incidents rose to 21,313 from 19,120.

Like in 2012, Chennai and Bangalore have topped the list of suicides in cities with 2,450 and 2,033 incidents respectively last year, followed by Delhi (1,753) and Mumbai (1,322).

Together, the report said, these cities accounted for 35.5 per cent of the total suicides reported from 53 cities.

In 2012 too, these cities had the same rankings.

“It is observed that social and economic causes have led most of the males to commit suicides whereas emotional and personal causes have mainly driven females to end their lives.

Family problems (24 per cent) and illness (19.6 per cent) have accounted for 43.6 per cent of total suicides in the country during 2013,” the report said.

Among the states, Maharashtra topped the list with 16,622 suicides followed by Tamil Nadu (16,601) and Andhra Pradesh (14,607). West Bengal (13,055) and Karnataka (11,266) also figure in the top five.

Coming as a shocker is the finding that 26 girls under 14 years of age who committed suicide were “housewives”, while two from the same age group worked in PSUs. In 2012, 28 girls under the age of 14 years, who were housewives, ended their lives.

A total of 3,964 “housewives” committed suicide last year, of which 382 were from Chennai and 380 from Bangalore.

Statistically, the Centre and state governments can heave a sigh of relief on the farmer suicide front, with numbers going down in 2013 compared to 2012. Last year, there were 11,772 farmer suicides compared to 13,754 in 2012.

Maharashtra had the highest number of farmer suicides (3,146) last year as against 3,786 in 2012 followed by Andhra Pradesh (2,014) and Karnataka (1,403). In the previous year, Andhra had 2,572 such incidents and Karnataka 1,875.

Deaths due to road accidents have also gone down from 1,39,091 in 2012 to 1,37,423 last year.

The highest number of deaths due to road accidents during these years were reported in Uttar Pradesh (15,630) followed by Tamil Nadu (15,563), Andhra Pradesh (14,647) and Maharashtra (13,245). Karnataka saw 9,044 deaths due to road accidents in 2013.