The tendency of attempting suicide over petty issues particularly due to domestic altercation, love affair, depression due to non-availability of certain drugs, failure in fulfilling aspiration and others, is shockingly on a rise across Chhattisgarh, mainly in rural areas of the State.
Over 9500 cases of suicidal bid were reported across the State between August 2014 and August 2015, out of which 9029 cases were recorded in its rural parts.
The shocking revelation came to the fore in a record maintained by ‘Sanjeevani 108’ Emergency Ambulance Service.
The data provided by Sanjeevani 108 revealed that suicidal tendency is sharply increasing in the rural areas of Chhattisgarh and youths are most affected by this trend.
Suicidal tendency is higher in male population falling in age group of below 19 years (2721), 20-29 year (2939), 30-39 year (1862) and 40-49 year (1139).
Notably, the shocking number of suicidal attempts made by people in age group of 50-59 years is 549 and 358 in above 60 years, has raised several eyebrows.
In the aforementioned period, Sanjeevani 108 has attended 9568 emergency cases of suicidal bid and poisoning, of which 9029 cases were recorded in rural and 539 cases in urban parts of Chhattisgarh. Of the total, 5513 were male and 4055 were female.
In as many as 8248 cases, people have consumed poison to attempt suicide while in 351 cases, people made suicidal bid by hanging, slashing wrist and cutting throat.
With 983 cases of suicidal bid, Bilaspur is leading other district of Chhattisgarh which is followed by Janjgir-Champa (764), Raipur (663), Mahasamund (639), Raigarh (484), Dhamtari (478), Rajnandgaon (475), Durg (433), Balod (412), Korba (410), Balodabazaar (409), Sarguja (386), Kanker (342), Jashpur (321), Balrampur and Surajpur (297-297), Gariaband (283) Bemetara (279), Bastar (265).
least cases of suicidal bid were recorded in Narayanpur with 26 cases during the period followed by Bijapur (35), Dantewada (86) and Sukma (92), says records of Sanjeevani 108.
“The impact of different media and drugs could be the two important factors which led to significant hike in suicidal tendency among youths in rural areas. Due to media, aspiration level of youths increasing significantly and failing in achieving it results in suicidal tendency. Similarly, addiction of drugs also play a major role in which youths initially went to depression and eventually acquire suicidal tendency,” said Priyamvada Shrivastava, Professor for psychology in Pt Ravishankar Shukla University Raipur.