Govt launches Sakshar Bharat Mission to reduce illiteracy

The government on Tuesday launched the Sakshar Bharat Mission with the objective to reduce illeteracy especially among the women to mark the International Literacy Day.

The government today launched the Sakshar Bharat Mission with the objective to reduce illeteracy especially among the women to mark the International Literacy Day.

Speaking on the occasion the Prime Minister said although good progress has been made to make India literate, one third of the population still continuous to be illeterate and half of the women cannot read or write.

He said that the number of illiterate people in the country is the highest in the world.

Singh said that empowering the disadvantaged groups with literacy is a big challenge for the government.

He expressed the hope that the Saakshar Bharat Mission will involve the community, Panchayati Raj Institution and the women self help groups in its endeavour.

Outlining a number of progressive programmes and laws enacted by the government to empower the Aam Aadmi, the Prime Minister said that literacy is central to the success of all these programmes.

Singh also reiterated the government's commitment to provide quality education to every child in the country and said that resources will not be a constraint in this effort.

The objective of this new flagship programme of the government is to provide functional literacy to the adults over 15 years of age.

It aims to achieve 100 percent literacy in 365 low literacy districts where the adult female literacy rate is 50 percent less as per the 2001 census.

33 districts affected with left wing extremism will be covered under the programme.

Ten percent of the budget of the programme will be spend in north eastern region. The goals of the programme are to achieve the 80 percent literacy by making 7 crore people literate, reduce gender disparity and minimize regional disparitiesi.