In part I of the trilogy on the eve of World Mental Health Day, I began with the consensus estimate that 1 in 7 Indians are, at any point in time, suffering from one or the other mental illnesses with humungous personal, familial, social and national consequences and a growing economic cost to the economy of India that is Bharat, deflating the GDP of the country between 3-4 per cent annually.
INDIA’S MENTALLY ILL
The absolute number of mentally ill in the country today ranges between “18.90 crore and 20.4 crore”. The enormity of the national burden of mental illness must be gauged from the fact that the total number of mentally ill in India is more than 2.5 per cent of the world population which translates to almost equal to Brazil’s population (seventh most populous country), double of Mexico’s population (tenth most populous country) and three times the United Kingdom’s population (21st most populous country).
