It is essential to mount sustained literacy effort in the above states particularly in the first four low literacy states; which have been nicknamed as BIMARU (sick) states.
District Level 19. Of the 466 districts in the country at the time of 1991 census, census data is available for 452 districts (14 districts of Jammu & Kashmir were not covered). Disparity in literacy rates at the district level was more acute. It varied from 95.72 percent in Kottyam District of Kerala to 19.01 in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh. Highest literacy rate of 97.67 percent was in respect of urban male population of Kottyam district and the lowest rate of 4.2 percent was in case of rural female population of Barmer district of Rajasthan.
20. Frequency distribution of districts by literacy rates in respect of all persons for Rural and Urban areas is given below-
Literacy Rate No of districts having literacy rate
All Persons All Areas % Rural Areas %
0-10 - -
10-20 1 5
20-30 26 59
30-40 88 108
40-50 121 110
50-60 91 88
60-70 76 48
70-80 28 11
80 and above 21 17
Total 452 446*
* There are no rural areas in 6 districts.
Statewise frequency distribution of districts is given in Annexure-I. It is observed that there are 27 districts which have still literacy rate of below 30 percent (Annexure-II). These districts are located in the States/UT's of Madhya Pradesh (3), Arunachal Pradesh (2), Bihar (10), Rajasthan (3), Orissa (1), Uttar Pradesh (7) and Andhra Pradesh (1). More than 50 percent of the total districts of the country are still having literacy rate of below 50%. Only 21 districts forming less than 5 percent are above the 80 percent mark. These districts are located in the states of Gujarat (1), Kerala (14), Maharashtra (1), Mizoram (1), Tamil Nadu (2), Lakshadweep (1) and Pondicherry (1). Position of literacy
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in Urban Areas is better. If we take into account literacy rate of only rural areas, number of districts, which fall below 30% literacy rate, rises to 64 and the number of districts with rural literacy rate of below 50% rises to 282. There are only 17 districts in the country where the rural literacy rate is higher than 80%.
21. Frequency distribution of districts by literacy rates of females for all areas and rural areas indicates a different scenario.
No. of districts having
female literacy rate
Literacy Rate
Female only All Areas % Rural Areas %
0-10 2 27
10-20 71 107
20-30 104 99
30-40 92 82
40-50 74 74
50-60 56 28
60-70 27 11
70-80 12 7
80 and above 14 11
Total 452 446
Frequency distribution of districts by states according to female literacy rate is given in Annexure-III. 22. There are 73 districts (Annexure-IV) in the country which still have female literacy rate of below 20 percent including 2 districts of Rajasthan having literacy rate of below 10%. Of these 66 viz. 90.4% are located in the four low literacy Hindi speaking states of Madhya Pradesh (10), Bihar (18), Rajasthan (19) and Uttar Pradesh (19). Position of female literacy in rural areas is still worse.
There are 27 districts (15 Rajasthan, 7 Uttar Pradesh, 3 Madhya Pradesh, one each in Bihar and Orissa) which have rural female literacy rate of below 10 percent. The number of districts having rural female literacy rate of below 20% was 134 forming about 30 percent of the total districts of the country in 1991
III - FLOW OF ILLITERATE CHILDREN TO ADULT POPULATION 23. If the constitutional directive of free and compulsory education for the children up to the age of 14 years was fulfilled, all the children would have at least been literate before entering the adult population of 15 years and above. Literacy rates are worked out for quinquennial age groups from 5-9 to 20-24 years. Literacy rate in age group 5-9 was 19.83 percent in 1961 and went up to 30.27 in 1981 (Age wise data for 1991 census is not yet available). Children of this age group particularly of ages 5 and 6 have not had enough schooling to be literate. It would be appropriate to consider literacy rate of age group 10-14 to measure the impact of primary education on literacy rate of the age group 10-14 which was 42.26 percent in 1961 increased by about 7 percentage points in each of 1961-71 and 1971-81 decades and was 49.62 in 1971 and 56.38 in 1981. Gross Enrolment Ratio of children of age group 6-10 in classes I-V which was 83.1 percent in 1981 has gone up to 102.7 percent in 1992 and that of girls has also improved from 66.2 to 88.1 during this period. There are other factors which impinge upon the literacy of these children.
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Definite data on net enrolment ratios, rates of attendance and achievement at primary level is not available. However the dropout rates give a rough idea of the retention at this stage. According to 1988-89 dropout rates, out of 100 students enrolled in class I in 1984-85, 48 dropped out by the time the cohort reached class V in 1988-89. The dropout rate in case of girls was 50. The retention rate which was 52 in 1988-89 and is projected to have improved to 54 at the beginning of the eighth five year plan and is proposed to be raised to 80 by the end of the eighth five year plan. The high rate of dropout at primary stage, affects the literacy rate of age group 10-14. Though efforts are now being made to enroll the dropouts in non-formal education centres and even in the total literacy campaigns, a large proportion of them continue to enter as illiterates in the adult population of age group 15 and over. Literacy rate of the adult population age group 15 and over which was 27.76 percent in 1961 increased to 34.08 percent in 1971 and to 40.83 percent in 1981. Number of illiterates in this age group increased from 187 million in 1961 to 210 million in 1971 and 238 million (excluding Assam) in 1981. As per the UNESCO estimates for 1990, number of adult illiterates aged 15 years and over in India was 280.7 million and the literacy rate was 48.2 percent. It shows that more and more illiterate children have been joining the illiterates of the age group 15 and over daring these decades. Census results over the decades not only indicate that a sizable section of the children of age group 10-14 are entering adulthood without being literate, these results also inform us that a large section of the literates of this age group continues to have literacy level of below primary education. According to 1981 census, 39 percent of the literates of age group 10-14 and 13 percent of the age group 15-19 were those who had not completed primary education and were classified as literates without educational level. There is, therefore, need to ensure that all children below the age of 14 are provided not only access to education but their participation in the educational effort and achievement of minimum levels of learning also needs to be ensured.
IV - ADULT LITERACY SITUATION AND LITERACY PROGRAMMES 24. Magnitude of the problem of adult illiteracy of age group 15 and over in India as already indicated is very large. Of the 948.1 million adult illiterates in the world, 280.7 million forming 29.6 percent were in India in 1990. No other country of the world, except China with 223.7 million illiterates, had more than 50 million adult illiterates. Adult literacy programmes in India have primarily been aimed at the most productive and reproductive age-group of 15-35. Literacy rate of this age group which was 32.40 percent in 1961, increased to 42.03 percent in 1971 and to 50.02 percent in 1981 (63.92 percent for male and 355.30 percent for female). Number of illiterates in this age group has also been increasing. It increased from 97 million in 1971 to 107 million (excluding Assam) in 1981. Including estimates for Assam, number of illiterates of this age group in 1981 was 110 million. Standing Committee of Experts on Population Projections, projected in 1989 that the population in the age group 15-35 would be about 297 million in 1991. If the number of illiterates of this age group is assumed to have stabilized around the 1981 level of 110 million, literacy rate for this age group works out 63 percent for 1991 as compared to that of 50 percent for 1981. Age group wise census data for 1991 on literacy is likely to be available during 1994. The Eighth Five Year Plan has set a target of making 100 million adults literate during 1992-97. Total Literacy Campaigns have been started in more than 200 districts of the country in many districts the campaign covers the district as a whole in one phase, while in some others, the coverage has been planned in two to three phases. The total target group of the campaigns already taken up is more than 50 million. By the end of the Eighth Five Year Plan, these campaigns are likely to be extended to 345 districts of the country. Target group of the Total Literacy Campaigns has varied from age group of 6-50 in Kerala to 9-45, 9-35 and 15-35 in case of several districts in different states. Age group 15-35 essentially forms part of the target group.
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