A survey conducted by the Supreme Court-appointed National Task Force on student mental health has found that 9 per cent of over 2.43 lakh respondents reported experiencing suicidal thoughts often or very often.

The findings, reported on September 29, also show that 15 per cent of students experienced sustained distress, 34 per cent said they felt like outsiders, and 32 per cent reported that counselling was unavailable to them.

The task force’s numbers paint a stark picture of campus mental health, underlining the gap between the scale of distress and the support systems meant to address it.

Those familiar with the report caution that the findings are preliminary and not fully representative, with self-selection in the respondent pool potentially skewing the picture.

The survey is expected to feed into the panel’s final recommendations on institutional safeguards, counsellor availability and early-intervention mechanisms for students across higher education institutions. Mental health professionals say the findings, even if preliminary, reinforce long-standing calls for counsellors in every institution. The task force was constituted by the Supreme Court earlier to study student distress and suggest systemic safeguards.