Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on January 19 sought the assistance of National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) to help de-stress the armed police forces across the country in the wake of growing instances of suicide.

"Our central armed police forces and police forces need that services which help them de-stress and manage themselves better," he said. "I urge NIMHANS to facilitate a nationwide programme to prevent suicides and to undertake a systematic intervention to help our forces handle situations successfully," Singh said.

In the 23rd convocation address at NIMHANS, he said he was confident that the institute had the capacity to take up the initiative nationwide. In this context, Singh recalled an initiative of NIMHANS with the Tamil Nadu police department, wherein the institute planned to include the families in promoting wellness of the police personnel.

Singh voiced his concern over the growing cases of suicide and asked NIMHANS to take measures to reduce their numbers. Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare J P Nadda expressed confidence that NIMHANS would play a lead role in responding to the challenges of mental health care. "To be able to achieve this mission successfully, NIMHANS will have to nurture similar institutions regionally and if required, in the states of our country," Nadda said.

Highlighting the achievements of the union government in the last five years, Nadda said that since 2014-15, undergraduate and postgraduate seats have been increased by 18,000 and 13,000 respectively and the number of UG and PG seats in the country has gone up to 70,000 and 45,000 respectively.

As many as 118 new medical colleges have been added to the list of such colleges in the last five years, raising the total number of medical colleges to 499, which is the highest in the world with 70,000 seats. Nadda said the existing medical colleges were being upgraded by setting up of super specialty blocks in 70 such colleges in the entire country. "We are expanding the network of our medical colleges in a big way by upgrading 82 district and referral hospitals to medical colleges," Nadda told the gathering.