Telangana takes lessons of Tripura's success in literacy

Telangana would introduce Left-ruled Tripura's model of success in literacy, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari said here on Tuesday after a three-day tour of the northeastern state.

Accompanied by top education department officials, Srihari since Sunday visited various villages and literacy centres in Tripura to study the success of literacy in the northeastern state, which attained the literacy rate of 96.82 per cent targeting to reach 100 per cent at the earliest.

"I am personally overwhelmed by the success of Tripura in literacy. At the interior areas and villages, people especially the women and tribals are very glad after becoming literate," the visiting minister, who also holds the education portfolio of Telangana government, told reporters before leaving for Hyderabad.

He said: "The literacy rate of Telangana is 66 per cent which is less than the national literacy rate (the national literacy rate, according to the 2011 census, is 74.04 per cent). After returning to my state, we would discuss and study Tripura's success and implementing method and again sought the help of the state (Tripura) if required."

Srihari, who held a series of meetings here with Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty, Finance and Information Minister Bhanulal Saha and top education department officials of Tripura, said that his government might bring resource persons from Tripura to execute the literacy road-map.

"In attaining success in literacy, the three-tier gram panchayats and volunteers have played a significant role in Tripura. This is very instructive," he added.

"Tripura attained 87.75 per cent literacy in the 2011 census. After three phases of massive state-wide literacy campaign since 2011, the literacy rate now stands at 96.82 per cent and it would touch 100 per cent soon," Tripura education minister Tapan Chakraborty told reporters after meeting the Telangana deputy Chief Minister at the state guest house.

He said that Tripura has gone up from 12th position as per the 2001 census to the fourth position in the 2011 census in literacy among different states of the country.

Chakraborty said that the final evaluation of the neo-literate people was conducted across the state under the supervision of the (Kolkata-based) Indian Statistical Institution (ISI) and (Noida-based) National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).