By Arun Lakshman

Chennai, Sep 17 (IANS): With Tamil Nadu recording the second highest number of suicides in the country after Maharashtra, a look at the reasons for the extreme step reveals that family and domestic issues are the single largest reason for people to commit suicide in the state.

Tamil Nadu topped the list of mass suicides in the country with 33 families taking their lives. The main reasons for mass suicide vary from domestic problems, illness, poverty and alcohol addiction of the family head.

Most of the people who committed suicide did it due to family problems, followed by illness. Drug abuse and alcohol addiction, marriage related issues, failure in love, bankruptcy or indebtedness, unemployment, failure in examination, career problems and poverty were the other main reasons for a person to commit suicide in Tamil Nadu.

Sradha, an NGO which is into counselling people contemplating suicide, in a study in Tamil Nadu said that the number of people taking their lives due to drug abuse and/or alcohol addiction is on the increase in the state. Around 4,300 people killed themselves due to this in 2021 alone.

Sudhir Krishnan, Coordinator, Sradha told IANS: "Our study on the reasons for suicide revealed that after domestic issues and illness, drug or alcohol addiction takes the maximum number of lives in Tamil Nadu."

"This has to be properly taken care of as there are possibilities of bringing these people back to leading a normal life. We have done the study so that we can intervene in this matter and with the state government support, many lives can be saved."

Except for hard core alcohol or drug addicts, the rest, according to Sudhir, can be brought back to the mainstream.

He added that while domestic issues can also be cleared in most cases, a person who is taking his life due to illness will be a difficult person to stop.

With the commencement of counselling for NEET students, the number of students who have taken their lives due to failure in NEET has come down. While 12 such cases were reported in 2021, in 2022 the number has come down to 1.

A counsellor with Sneha, a 24X7 helpline, told IANS, "There is progress in child behaviour as far as NEET is concerned and compared to 2021 this year it has come down tremendously. The department has contacted almost all the students who have taken NEET and proper counselling has helped the students and the results are there for all to see."

The Tamil Nadu government is also planning to increase the counselling helplines and has already had discussions with NGOs who are into suicide prevention and counselling.