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The survey found 56% of students trusted their institution’s administration to handle serious issues fairly, while 32% said their institution did not provide counselling services.
The findings come amid renewed concern over student suicides following the deaths of students at IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay. (File/Representative image)
About 15 per cent of students in higher education institutions (HEIs) said they had experienced a period of severe distress, low mood or anxiety in the previous six months, while nine per cent reported experiencing suicidal thoughts, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Supreme Court-appointed National Task Force (NTF) on student mental health and suicides.
The findings, accessed by PTI, are expected to form part of the NTF’s final report, which is due to be submitted to the Supreme Court by October 31. The NTF was constituted to examine mental health concerns among students and recommend measures to prevent suicides in higher educational institutions.
The findings come amid renewed concern over student suicides following the deaths of students at IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay, which have triggered widespread debate over mental health and institutional support systems on campuses.
The NTF had earlier submitted an interim report to the Supreme Court highlighting several systemic concerns in higher education, including social discrimination, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, caste-based humiliation and differences in academic support. The report also pointed to issues such as hostel curfews, moral policing and the identification of students by their NEET-UG and JEE ranks.
The latest student survey received responses from more than 2.43 lakh students, with 67 per cent of respondents belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories.
About 34 per cent of respondents said they had felt like an outsider on campus to varying degrees. Around 15 per cent recalled experiencing a period in the previous six months when they felt very overwhelmed or distressed, or experienced low moods or anxiety continuously for several weeks. Nine per cent said they had experienced suicidal thoughts often or very often in the past year.
The survey also found that 56 per cent of students trusted their institution’s administration to handle serious issues fairly, while about 32 per cent said their institution did not provide counselling services.
Officials said concerns related to academic choices and frequent worries about employment were among the issues commonly reported by students.
However, the NTF has cautioned that the findings are preliminary. A senior official told PTI that responses to several questions, including open-ended responses, were still being analysed. The official also said the current sample was not representative and that the observations should therefore be treated as tentative.
The emerging findings, however, point to the need for standardised student-support systems, the official said. These could include faculty training, measures to reduce stigma around mental health, crisis-response standard operating procedures, regular monitoring backed by quality data, and more responsive and transparent administrative systems.
In addition to the survey, the NTF has conducted institutional visits and stakeholder consultations. According to the official, 30 meetings at 19 institutional sites have so far been held across Delhi and the National Capital Region, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Assam and West Bengal, covering different types of institutions and academic disciplines.
The official said students at most of the institutions visited spoke about academic, social, mental health, faculty-related and administrative concerns. The NTF has also previously reported that its institutional visits are not representative because of the limited number of institutions covered.
Among the academic concerns reported were strict attendance requirements, demanding academic schedules, academic and clinical overload in medical and allied fields, and extended on-call hours for medical students. Students in engineering institutions also reported intense competition linked to relative grading and stringent placement criteria.
Other concerns included inadequate academic support because of faculty shortages in state universities, insufficient practical training in dental, nursing and mental health-related programmes, and problems involving PhD supervision. These included allegations of neglect, excessive control and exploitative practices by some supervisors.
The NTF was constituted by the Supreme Court in March 2025 to examine the rising incidence of student suicides and mental health and well-being concerns among students in higher education institutions across the country. The task force is chaired by former Supreme Court judge Justice S Ravindra Bhat and includes psychiatrist Alok Sarin, former Centre for Women’s Development Studies director Mary E John, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People Executive Director Arman Ali, Aman Satya Kachroo Trust founder Rajendar Kachroo and NIMHANS Professor of Clinical Psychology Seema Mehrotra, among others.
The Supreme Court has given the NTF until October 31, 2026, to submit its final report.
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