Cut off from home, Kota students weighed down by expectations, mental fatigue

In Kota, nearly 4,000 hostels (locally called “residency”) and 40,000 paying guest (PGs) facilities house over two lakh students from across India who come to the city to prepare for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the gateway into the hallowed corridors of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the medical profession. Twenty-three students have already died by suicide in Kota as of August, the highest in the last eight years. Of these, eight died in Kunadi, the maximum in a police station’s jurisdiction in the city.

In Kota, nearly 4,000 hostels and 40,000 paying guest (PGs) facilities house over two lakh students from across India.

ASI Sharma and her team, a part of the Kota Students’ Cell, have been tasked with reaching out to aspirants daily to identify those facing issues or suspected to be suffering from depression. The 11-member cell, which was established in June, has been attempting to solve the problems affecting the students and helping those suffering from depression get professional counselling.

The 11-member cell was established in June to solve the problems affecting students and help those suffering from depression get professional help. (Express photo by Deep Mukherjee)

It’s lunchtime at Shree Gajanand mess, which is bustling with coaching students, their earphones plugged in. As soon as ASI Sharma and her team steps inside the mess and starts uncoiling a banner, a young man and woman sharing a table take a pause from sipping their coffee to look at the four women. The banner has the cell’s helpline number.

“Koi pareshani toh nahin? Hamein kuch bhi bata sakte ho (Is anyone facing any problem? You can tell us anything),” Sharma asks the students closest to her. They listen as her team asks them about the quality of mess food and whether someone is bothering them. The team encourages the students to use the number on the banner for “any assistance they might need 24/7”.

Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Thakur Chandrasheel Kumar, who is in-charge of the cell, interacts with students. (Express photo by Deep Mukherjee)

The team takes a few photographs with the students to share with Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Thakur Chandrasheel Kumar, who is in-charge of the Kota Students’ Cell and is monitoring the day-to-day activities of each of the teams.

The spike in the number of suicides this year has resulted in the cell working long hours each day to identify students who may be in need of help. According to data shared by Kota Police, 17 students died by suicide in 2015, followed by 16 in 2016, 7 in 2017, 20 in 2018, 8 in 2019, 4 in 2020 and 15 in 2022. The Covid-19 lockdown in 2021 saw the students leaving Kota temporarily.

ASI Sanju Sharma and her team, head constable Meena, and constables Najma and Prema, put up a banner at Shree Gajanand mess in Kunadi area of Rajasthan’s Kota. The team encouraged the students to call the cell’s helpline number in case of any issue. (Express photo by Deep Mukherjee)

Efforts to curb suicides

As the suicides count went up in Kota, on August 16, the Kota district administration made it compulsory for hostel and PGs to instal a spring device on ceiling fans — seen as many as a band-aid measure to tackle a problem that called for a more serious intervention.

A day before the August 16 order was issued, an 18-year-old JEE aspirant from Bihar’s Gaya died by suicide. In Kota since 2022, the student had last visited home on Diwali. Days before his suicide, he had celebrated his 18th birthday with a cousin, who also studies in Kota.

The student’s father, a retired Army subedar, lamented, “He never told us that he was having problems. We never forced him to go to Kota. He chose to go to Kota himself. Had he told us that he didn’t want to continue staying there, we would have brought him home. A month ago, his coaching centre told us that he was attending classes regularly but had missed a couple of tests. When we asked him about the tests, he said he was unwell. On the day he died, he was surfing the Internet late into the night. We don’t know what happened.”

He added that he had visited his son for a day and urged him to make friends with other students. “Baat-cheet hi nahi karta tha. Dost the uske yahan pe. Woh bolta tha, ‘Papa, bahar mein bharosa hi nahi kisi ka’ (He didn’t talk to anyone in Kota. He had friends back home. He would tell me people in Kota are not to be trusted),” he said.

Those in the police and the administration say Kota’s problems go much beyond those typically faced in any university town or college campus. Faced with the burden of expectations and the pressure of gruelling work hours, police officials say the problems of students range from depression and lagging behind in studies to relationship problems and homesickness.

Many Kota residents have constructed multi-storied hostels or converted their homes into PGs. The city has nearly 4,000 hostels and 40,000 PGs to house over two lakh JEE and NEET aspirants from across India. Hostels/PGs charge about Rs 7,000 per month for lodging, including food. (Express photo by Deep Mukherjee)

Most calls the police helpline has received have to do with the status of refunds, including security deposits, by coaching institutes and hostels for students who wish to dropout. Incidents of quarrels, fights and inappropriate comments on social media have also been also raised, besides cases of suspected depression and mental fatigue, said officials.

In July, the cell received information that a student’s family was forcing him to get married. The cell stepped in to counsel the student and his parents. There were more calls for help — an alleged blackmail by a fellow student, a student who did not want to study for NEET but join the defence forces, and so on.

Kota City SP Sharad Chowdhary said being away from home and having to deal with stressful situations on their own often takes a heavy toll on the students.

“The major difference between Kota and other coaching hubs in Rajasthan like Sikar is that Kota houses students from outside Rajasthan. Unlike Sikar, which has students from Rajasthan, Kota students are mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. They are far from home and their parents cannot visit them regularly,” said Chowdhary, adding that they will work towards using technology to better identify problems faced by students.

The Kota coaching industry started in the early 1990s, when Bansal Classes, set up by Vinod Kumar Bansal, started offering coaching to students preparing for IITs. (File/Express photo by Tashi Tobgyal)

Chowdhury said, “There has to be an online system with facilities like facial recognition and artificial intelligence cameras, to ensure there is 100 per cent attendance. Biometric attendance won’t work because one student can swipe another student’s card. Usually, the first sign of a student being depressed or suicidal is when they start missing classes. We have to work in this direction by using technology more effectively,” said Chowdhary.

‘Guardians’ away from home

Back at his office in the city, ASP Kumar receives a frantic call from a minor diagnosed with depression by the cell’s counsellors. Her parents were in Kota to take her back to Bihar for good after being intimated by the cell. The student, who had told her counsellors that she was unable to sleep due to anxiety, was worried about the refund from the coaching institute. Her family had deposited her fees for the entire year when she joined the institute.

“Don’t worry. I have spoken with everyone. Your refund is being processed. We are here to help you,” ASP Kumar assures the student who, he says, has called him multiple times over the last few days seeking reassurance regarding the refund.

The average coaching fee for one student in Kota is about Rs 1 lakh annually. Besides, hostels/PGs charge about Rs 7,000 per month for lodging, including food. In Rajasthan’s coaching hub, almost every residential property has been converted to cater to the residential needs of students. Officials peg the worth of Kota’s coaching industry and its ancillary businesses at nearly Rs 12,000 crore.

With just four months left for the year to end, the cell’s teams across Kota are holding daily meetings with various stakeholders associated with the multi-crore coaching industry in the hope that the spate of suicides this year are halted. “The cell is trying to tell these students that we are their guardians in Kota while they are away from their homes. They can share with us things they may hesitate to tell their parents,” says Kumar.

‘Anti-suicide’ nets installed at a hostel in Kota. The Kota district administration had in an order dated August 16 made it compulsory for hostel and PGs to instal a spring device on ceiling fans to “prevent” suicides. (PTI)

Pointing at a possible oversight, Manish Jain, founder president of the Kota Hostel Association and the owner of a hostel in the city, said, “The caretaker of hostels and PGs play a crucial role in identifying cases of depression, like a student not attending classes regularly or skipping meals. However, hostels and PGs rarely think much while selecting wardens or caretakers. Usually a person who has not even finished schooling is left to manage 150 students preparing for JEE and NEET.”

Dressed in a formal shirt and pants, ASI Sharma and her team in plain-clothes visit a girls’ hostel, a five-storey building with the capacity to lodge 100 students. ASI Sharma, a mother of two, has worked for over 20 years in the force. Posted at police stations in Kota, where she investigated cases of loot and dacoity, she was selected as a member of the Students’ Cell in June.

A pen tucked in her bun and a notebook in her hand, she chatted with the aspirants at the girls’ hostel, some as young as around 15 years. The girls tell her that they are preparing for NEET since they want to become doctors. “I wish that all of you become doctors. But since the seats are limited compared to the number of aspirants, there is no harm in having a second option. Whatever happens, just remember that we are here for you. Take our numbers. Even if you feel homesick at night… just call us,” she said.

The girls open up soon enough, even cracking jokes with the ASI and her team. “We are not allowed to take classes in the evening, but the boys are. The boys get to sleep in…They should also have their classes early in the morning,” says a girl as others burst into laughter. “You’ll be a politician,” Head Constable Meena quips.