New Delhi: The Central Ministry of Education announced on Wednesday that no cases of caste discrimination or social exclusion of SC and ST students have been reported from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) over the last five years.  

The information was shared by Union Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar in response to a written question in Rajya Sabha. 

The Minister informed that seven cases of suicides by SC and ST students have been reported in IITs while the same number of students from the two categories in Central Universities died by suicide since 2018. 

"No cases of caste discrimination and alienation in SC and ST students have been reported from IITs in the last five years. With regard to Central Universities (CUs), no data on caste discrimination is maintained centrally. 

"In cases of suicides, besides an internal inquiry by the institute, the district and police administration also enquire into the incident. The reasons behind such suicides were found to be academic stress, family reasons, personal reasons, mental health issues, etc," Sarkar said.

(With PTI inputs)