Plans are under discussion at Indian Institutes of Technology to establish a dedicated workforce of mental health practitioners tasked with supporting the psychological welfare of both students and staff, directors at the institutions have indicated. Two IIT directors stated that the cadre proposal had been under internal deliberation for at least two years before recent student suicides occurred, making clear the plan was not a response to those deaths.
A number of IITs faced scrutiny over student deaths by suicide on their campuses, with each case tied to its own set of circumstances. On 18 September, a student at IIT Bombay was found dead in his hostel room, a death that prompted campus protests and reignited questions about the recurring problem of student suicides at IITs — institutions that have already introduced various mental health initiatives. Protests had already broken out at IIT Delhi following a student's death by suicide there in August, and the incident represents one of multiple such fatalities recorded at India's leading technical institutions over recent years.
Parliament received a submission from the Ministry of Education earlier this year indicating that dedicated mental health and counselling facilities had been established across all IIT, IIM, NIT, and IIIT campuses, with professional counsellors, clinical psychologists, and in certain instances psychiatrists — whether full-time or visiting — made available to students at each of those locations.
An IIT director, speaking to a news channel, noted that while some institutions had partnered with third-party applications and others maintained on-campus counsellors, neither arrangement adequately served the scale of student populations involved, and that discussions had been under way for at least two years around establishing a dedicated cadre of mental health professionals capable of supporting not only students but faculty and other campus staff as well.
India's 23 Indian Institutes of Technology, each home to anywhere between 3,000 and 18,000 students alongside teaching staff, their dependants, and wider residential communities, face a documented gap in mental health infrastructure — with those familiar with the situation noting that dedicated roles for counsellors, psychologists, and psychiatrists cannot be filled, even on a contractual basis, without formal post creation and ringfenced funding. The proposal stands on its own footing, independent of the incidents that preceded it.
A proposal was placed before former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, while IIT Gandhinagar has been developing a framework covering all IITs that would establish sanctioned positions for counsellors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, according to another IIT director. Minutes from the IIT Council's meeting the previous year show that the framework, once developed, would align with Rehabilitation Council of India guidelines, incorporate adequate pathways for career advancement, and include periodic quality reviews.
V Ramgopal Rao, who serves as Group Vice Chancellor of BITS Pilani and previously directed IIT Delhi, has argued that difficulties surfacing at IITs stem from a uniform instructional model that admits students from varied backgrounds without adjusting teaching and learning approaches to account for that diversity.
An interim report from the Supreme Court-appointed National Task Force found that faculty at IITs broadly lacked the preparation needed to guide students through mental health challenges, with nine in ten teachers having received no formal training in that area. Of the 31 centrally funded institutions surveyed — among them 23 IITs — responses gathered by the panel revealed that while 18 had at least one mental health service provider in place, formal training for faculty mentorship programmes was documented at just four, with peer-support initiative training recorded at ten. Inconsistent application of the term "counsellor" across institutes further complicated the panel's ability to gauge how many of those positions were actually held by qualified mental health practitioners. A deadline of 31 October has been set for the committee to deliver its completed report.
A mental health policy framework was put into motion at IIT Roorkee earlier this year, with the institution working through a drafting process that other IITs could look to as a model. IIT Kharagpur's planned nightly blackouts anchor a broader push to support student wellbeing, with the unlit hours intended to pull hostel residents away from their devices and toward in-person interaction as a means of addressing social isolation. A peer-connection initiative at IIT Guwahati, operating under the name 'Know Your Neighbour', works toward building stronger ties among students on campus.
Across various IITs, a range of approaches has been put in place to support student mental health and reduce suicide risk, spanning curriculum adjustments, on-campus counselling and wellness facilities, digital wellness tools, gatekeeper training programmes, and peer support networks.
