Forty students from 15 IITs have committed suicide in the two-and-a-half years since the government issued preventive guidelines. Nine of the suicides occurred at IIT Kanpur and eight at IIT Kharagpur.

Dheeraj Singh, founder of the Global IIT Alumni Support Group and an IIT Kanpur ex-student, who obtained the data through the RTI Act, said his analysis suggested a recurring pattern of delayed responses and weak oversight.

He said the deaths were routinely attributed to “personal” or “academic” stress. Many students, who struggle through two or more years of intensive coaching just to crack the IIT admission test, find themselves unable to cope with the academic pressure of the actual engineering course.

Some 67 students of these premier institutes killed themselves over the past five years – 2021 to 2025 – with one more suicide recorded this year at IIT Kanpur.

Nine suicides were reported in 2021, followed by 14 each the following three years and 16 in 2025.

“Since the Union education ministry issued the guidelines... at least 40 suicides have taken place across the IITs. This raises the fundamental question of accountability,” Singh said.

“If a national framework was in force, who was responsible for monitoring compliance, evaluating outcomes, and intervening when warning signs were clearly emerging?”

The Union education ministry had in July 2023 issued guidelines to all higher educational institutions relating to students’ emotional and mental well-being, key to preventing suicides.

Following an IIT Council meeting on April 18 that year, the institutes had decided to hire a larger number of professional counsellors, who were to interact with every student for at least five minutes each semester.

The ministry guidelines urged regular friendly interactions among students — and between students and teachers — so that the vulnerable could be identified and their problems quickly addressed.

While the caste break-up of campus suicides isn’t available, the guidelines emphasised an “inclusive” and “non-discriminatory” environment.

On Thursday, the education ministry set up a committee to inquire into the large number of suicides at IIT Kanpur.

Former University of Mumbai vice-chancellor Rajan Welukar said that the parents needed to be sensitised more than the students themselves.

“Parents are pushing their children into these IITs (since they are) among the handful of institutions that have been maintaining the quality of education,” he said.

“But (some of these) students may have some other passion (different from science and technology). But they are constantly pushed into the same path – that of the IITs. This must stop.”

An email has been sent to higher education secretary Vineet Joshi seeking his perspectives on the monitoring and implementation of the guidelines. His response is awaited.