Jaipur
Educational hub Kota, Rajasthan is yet to have a government counseling centre. It may be recalled that over the last few years several incidents of students committing suicide have been reported. But the city still faces the apathy from the state government as the medical and engineering aspirants still await the counseling centre.
Kota is one of the most sought after destinations for medical and engineering aspirants across the country. Stress is one the major causes of the suicides being committed by the aspiring students, say the experts.
The government has so far no proposal for establishing any counseling centre in Kota. 21 students committed suicide last year where as the number has already touched 14 this year.
The district administration has directed all the institutes to appoint psychologists for counseling but the city still lacks full-fledged counseling centre for fighting stress among youth.
Speaking to the reporters district collector of Kota, Ravikumar Surpur said that the “district administration is monitoring the situation, all the institutes have been asked to appoint professional clinical psychologists for counseling of parents as well as the students before admission. Though there is no proposal from the government to establish its own counseling centre”.
The coaching centers contribute crores of rupees to the government in form of the service tax. Rs. 167.79 crore was collected last year in form of service tax by the government from the institutes.
There are two local organizations which run help lines and conduct counseling for students for stress management. One of the local organizations counseled 540 students last year. The level of stress among 26 students was so high that if they weren’t counseled, they would have committed suicide.
In most of the cases, study pressure is the key issue besides this relationship and home sickness are also important issues of stress.