The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) is in the process of developing a national strategy and also setting up a National Resource Centre to prevent suicides.

Although, NIMHANS has not been provided any government grant for the project, it is confident of generating the required resources from corporate houses and the government. The National Resource Centre will increase assistance during a crisis, through help lines, welfare programmes, restrict easy availability of organophosphorus compounds and drugs.

Suicide is a multi causal problem and a multi pronged strategy is required to handle the situation. The problem of suicide has been a phenomenal load on the health sector. "With an increasing number of suicides every year, India needs a national policy on suicide prevention," said Dr G Gururaj, professor and head, department of epidemiology, NIMHANS.

While many countries have formed prevention strategies for high-risk groups, India, which has a high suicide rate, has only started formulating a policy, which is this initiative from NIMHANS in the absence of government grant, he added.

The National Resource Centre for information on suicides will focus on prevention of suicide, high-risk group identification, organize services for those who have attempted suicide and provide necessary support for creation of work towards suicide prevention. "The ultimate goal is to work towards a suicide prevention policy at the national and state level," said Dr Gururaj.

The national strategy will address specific issues to handle problems in the area of education, occupation, economic, social, mental health family system and society. "We will focus on handling issues like examination stress, work pressure, chronic ailments and family problems, alcoholism, and violence, to control suicide, he said.

The causes of suicide in India are completely different from the west. The highest suicides completed or attempted abroad are usually by elderly males with poor mental health state, unlike in India where suicide rate is the highest between 15 years and 40 years where 56 per cent are males and 44 percent females. They are the victims of cultural and social problems. Another issue to be focussed in the national suicide strategy is the strengthening of the legal system and the de-stigmatising suicide.

NIMHANS is also aggressively working to strengthen the crisis control, social support network, early identification of depression and enhance life skills education.