Kota District Magistrate Dr Ravinder Goswami has launched a weekly Dinner with Collector programme under the Kamyab Kota campaign to ease the stress of coaching students in this coaching city. Himself an MBBS and a former coaching student from the town, Goswami launched the programme last month because of the rising number of suicides by coaching students, mainly due to study-related stress, PTI reported.
Under the Dinner with Collector, he has dinner with the students in a hostel every Friday to listen to their minds and hearts. On February 1, he interacted with the students of a hostel in the Indraprastha area. Additionally, he sang Bollywood songs with the students, shared success mantras and motivated them.
Notably, two coaching students and a 27-year-old BTech student died by suicide by hanging last month. About 26 coaching students allegedly died by suicide in Kota in 2023, the highest figure so far in the city, where over two lakh students come from all parts of the country every year for preparation of entrance exams for admission in medical and engineering colleges.
There are about 4,500 hostels and 40,000 PG accommodations for these coaching students in the city. During the latest interaction, Goswami, an IAS officer of the 2016 batch, told the students, "Why to create self-doubt?" Sharing their concerns about studies and preparation for competitive exams at the dinner, he told them to identify their strong as well as weak points and to improve the weak ones.
It was the second programme of its kind, the first being on January 26, which was the 75th Republic Day.
Students interact
On a question by a student, Kripa, about anxiety before exams, Goswami said, "Self-doubt and anxiety within limits are good as they activate your sympathetic nervous system, leading you to indulge in fight and flight mode. But do not take anxiety to the extreme level. From flight mode, you reach the fight mode."
"Keep anxiety to a certain limit and take deep breaths when you feel your hands are trembling," the collector advised by referring to a conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjun in Bhagavad Gita. Recounting his own experience as a student in Kota years back, the collector said he never got his name and number in the test series during two years of his preparation in Kota for the entrance exam for admission to medical college. But he never got worried, he said, and added that he avoided creating self-doubt. "God opens several doors, so why create self-doubt?" he told the students.
At the dinner, Goswami sang the old Hindi song Aa chal ke tujhe, main le ke chalun ek aise gagan ke taley. The coaching students also sang with him.
In the first event of Dinner with Collector, Goswami had dinner with coaching students in a hostel in the Landmark City area and gave tips for success. The collector sang the same song with the coaching students and cut a cake on the occasion of Republic Day, PTI reported.
