New Delhi: The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released the statistics that highlighted the soaring rise in the number of suicide cases in the year 2021 with Maharashtra recording the highest number of suicide cases.
According to the NCRB report, Maharashtra recorded 22,207 cases followed by 18,925 suicides in Tamil Nadu, 14,965 suicides in Madhya Pradesh, 13,500 suicides in West Bengal. The top five states accounted for more than 50% of cases in the year.
The data revealed a total of 1,64,033 people died from suicide in 2021. The rate of increase from the previous year stands at 7.2%. The rate of suicide per million population stands at 120 death, the highest since 1967.
The number of cases of suicide in cities has increased by 8.5% in the year 2021 with a total of 25,891 cases this year. Delhi topped the charts with a total of 2,760 suicide cases followed by Chennai with 2,699 cases. Bengaluru stands third with 2,292 followed by Mumbai with 1,436.
These four cities together have reported almost 35.5% of the total suicides reported from 53 cities.
In recent years a spike in number of mass suicide cases have been observed in the country. In 2021, a total 131 cases of mass/family suicide were reported with Tamil Nadu recording 33 cases in the year.
The data further observed that 64.2% (1,05,242) of suicide victims in 2021 were having annual income of less than 1 lakh. The breakdown of profession of the suicide victims shows maximum cases from the daily wage earner category and stands at 25.6%. Housewives accounted for 51.5% of the total female victims (23,179 out of 45,026) and constitute nearly 14.1% of total victims who committed suicides (23,179 out of 1,64,033) during 2021.