2/3rd of suicide victims belong to poorer sections

Two-third of those who committed suicide in India belong to the poorest sections of the society if one goes by the official data for the past years.

The Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2018 report showed that 88,986 or 66.2% of the 1.34 lakh people who committed suicide had an annual income less than Rs one lakh.

While the 2018 figure for such people is more than that of 2017 (84,934 or 65.4%), it has not crossed the 2016 numbers when India recorded 92,732 (70.8%) such incidents.

According to the 2018 report, Maharashtra with 11,848 cases topped the list among the people with less than Rs one lakh annual income who took their own lives followed by Tamil Nadu (10,041) and West Bengal (9,889).

Madhya Pradesh (8,778) and Karnataka (7,575) too had high number of such suicides.

When it comes to people having an income of Rs one lakh to Rs five lakh, there were 39,080 people committing suicide in 2018 compared to 33,254 in 2016 and 38,958 in 2017.

The number of those who committed suicide with an income more than Rs 10 lakh was 808, which was lower than 1,108 in 2016 and 1,269 in 2017. In

In this category, Telangana and Punjab topped the list with 196 and 121 cases respectively. Haryana (88), Andhra Pradesh (80) too had high numbers while Karnataka had 24 such cases.

When it comes to educational status, the number of people with higher qualifications was very less.

Only 403 professionals, including MBAs, committed suicide in 2018 but this was higher than 293 in the previous year.

Similarly, those with graduation and above too had less numbers at 4,447 as against 4,027.

However, those who had studied between Class VIII and Class X had the highest number at 31,757 followed by 26,252 in Class V-VII category, 23,048 in Class 1-IV and 17,026 with no education at all.

SUICIDE VICTIMS/ECONOMIC BACKGROUND

Annual Income	2016	2017	2018
Less than Rs 1 lakh	92,932 (70.8)	84,934 (65.4)	88,986 (66.2)
Rs 1 lakh–Rs 5 lakh	33,254 (25.4)	38,958 (30.0)	39,080 (29.1)
Rs 5 lakh– Rs 10 lakh	3914 (3.0)	4,726 (3.6)	5,642 (4.2)
Above Rs 10 lakh	1108 (0.8)	1,269 (1.0)	808 (0.6)
All India (TOTAL)	1,31,008	1,29,887	1,34,516

(In bracket: % to total suicides in the year)

SUICIDE VICTIMS – Education Profile 2017/2018

No Education – 18,027 / 17,026

Up to Class 5 – 24,010 / 23048

Between Class 5 and Class 8 – 26,288 / 26,252

Between Class 8 and Class 10 – 29,582 / 31,752

Between Class 10 and Class 12 – 16,738 / 22,076

Diploma/ITI – 1462 / 1447

Graduate and above – 4,027 / 4,437

Professionals – 293 /430

Status Not Known – 10,581 / 8,013