IITians to launch campaign to boost ‘happiness’ quotient in Kota
of student suicides in Kota are common. This year alone, 10 students have committed suicide in Kota. To reverse this trend and to increase the ‘happiness index’ among coaching students, a group of 20 IIT students and entrepreneurs, with help of the Kota district administration, will launch the ‘Making Kota, Happiness City’ campaign in June.
Motivational, counselling and recreational activities will be held for students throughout the year to de-stress them.
Around 1.50 lakh coaching students from all over the country come to Kota, often known as India’s capital for educational coaching, for preparation of IIT-JEE, NEET and other medical and engineering entrance examinations.
The group, led by Aman Maheshwari, an engineer, decided to start the campaign for coaching students. Most of the other members of the group are IITians who have passed out in recent years from IIT Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Roorkee and others who have done B.Tech in recent years.
“The group will run campaigns to enhance the image of Kota as an education hub,” said Maheshwari.
Aman, who has completed B.Tech from the Dubai campus of BITS Pilani and post graduation from the United Kingdom, said, “Sports, motivational and wellness programmes and other recreational activities will be organised every month.”
The convener of the Happiness City campaign, Siddharth Jain, an IIT student, said that their group has prepared a comprehensive action plan for increasing the happiness index in Kota City. A website with details of the campaign was launched on Sunday.
“Apart from recreation, students will be also be informed about multiple career options so that they do not get disheartened in case they fail to clear engineering or medical entrance examinations,” Jain said.
“When I was studying in London, Kota was popular as an education city among students and they wanted to know why Kota attracts students,” said Maheshwari.
He said that India lags behind countries such as Sri Lanka and Burma in happiness surveys conducted by the World Health Organisation, so they started the campaigns.
Jain said that activities such as ‘students got talent’, motivational seminars by experts, Happiness Adda, painting and sports activities, tie-ups for mental health activities with hospitals and doctors, career and psychological counselling, online book bank facility and spreading happiness will remain the core of the campaign.
Though the Kota district administration, with help of coaching institutes, had organised ‘Fun Day’ recreational events in the past, they were not helpful as they were not organised frequently.
KOTA:Cases