Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday called on colleges and Universities to include Stress Management as a part of training to students. She stressed that such lessons could contribute to the creation of internal patterns in students and work with the stress associated with a professional position.
Sitharaman’s comments came in the wake of the death of a 26-year-old Ann Sebastian Perayil, a CA professional working for EY. The 23-year-old from Thrissur had cleared her Chartered Accountancy exams in 2023 and had been working at EY Pune for four months when she succumbed to the accident in July. Her mother blamed the death on work-related pressures saying that they affected her daughter’s physical, emotional and mental health badly.
Referring to this misfortune at an event of a private medical college, Sitharaman was silent about the name of the person and the company. She added students perform well in their academics but are usually overwhelmed with work pressure later on, implying the need for the ability to deal with stress.
The Senior Congress leader KC Venugopal expressed his ire and termed the comments made by Sitharam, as cruel and accused her of victim-shaming. Under no circumstances can the minister justify that the deceased should have learned stress management at home and that is why Venugopal became outraged. He also said that Sitharaman’s response caused offence since it failed to capture the essence of the problems plaguing the corporate world that takes advantage of fresh graduates. He also criticized the government of supporting only the big business instead of taking time to even recognize the distress of the young generation being bodied down by pressure from job stress and lack of jobs.
He also criticised the government particularly on the aspect of their insensitivity and the failure to address some of the critical aspects that lead to the exploitation of workers in organisations.
