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| Edited By: Manish Bhardwaj |Source: DNA |Updated: Oct 03, 2011, 06:14 PM IST
The world's largest administrative exercise - Census 2011 - was recently completed in the country. It involved the deployment of 2.7 million enumerators to cover 1.21 billion people living in 240 million households in 7,935 towns and 6,40,867 villages of the 28 states and 7 union territories (UT) of the country.
The provisional population totals of the decadal Census were released within three weeks of the completion of the national exercise. This data sheds light on the demographic attributes of the population in different states and UTs as observed in the previous decade.
An analysis of the data on the various demographic attributes of the population in Gujarat indicates that current female literacy rate in Gujarat stands at 70.73% as compared to the national average of 65.46%.
As per the Census-2011 data, there were 4.19 crores literates in the state with nearly 1.8 crores literate women. The last decade saw an increase of 59.60 lakh female literates in the state.
Gujarat witnessed a phenomenal jump of 12.93% decadal increase in female literacy, overtaking states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The significant increase in number of literate women and female literacy rate has been witnessed in both rural and urban areas of Gujarat.
In the last decade, rural areas in the state added 29.21 lakh literate women as compared to 30.41 lakh in urban areas. Gujarat ranks seventh and eighth among states with the highest decadal increase in literate women in urban and rural areas, respectively. In fact, the state leads in equitable increase of literate women in urban and rural areas.
The current rural and urban female literacy in Gujarat stands at 62.41% and 82.08%, respectively; this is much higher than the national average. The decadal jump in female literacy in rural and urban areas in Gujarat stands at 14.57% and 7.58%, respectively.
The phenomenal jump in rural female literacy in the state in the last decade is largely attributed to the sustained annual movement - Kanya Kelavani - for enrolment of the girl child in schools of the villages, and the enhancement in education infrastructure in the rural areas.
Ahmedabad district has the highest number of literate women (24.50 lakh) followed by Surat (19.09 lakh), Vadodara (13.27 lakh) and Rajkot (12.26 lakh). Sabarkantha has the highest number of literate woman in rural areas (5.46 lakh) followed by Kheda (5.45 lakh) and Banaskantha (5.44 lakh).
The highest decadal increase in number of literate women in rural areas has been posted by Banaskantha (2.77 lakh) followed by Dahod (2.03 lakh) and Kheda (1.99 lakh). In urban areas, the highest increase in number of literate women has been reported in Porbandar (7.14 lakh) followed by Kheda (6.58 lakh) and Panchmahals (2.55 lakh).
Surat has the highest female literacy rate in the state (81.02%) followed by Ahmedabad (80.29%), Navsari (79.30%), Anand (77.76%), Gandhinagar (77.37%), Bharuch (76.79%), Mahesana (76.12%) and Rajkot (75.26%). At least 17 districts have female literacy levels higher than the national average.
In rural female literacy, the ranking is led by Navsari (76.69%) which is followed by Anand (74.41%), Mahesana (73.44%), Gandhinagar (72.77%) and Bharuch (72.50%). In all, 20 districts have registered higher figures than the national average.
Similarly, in urban female literacy, Valsad comes first at 89.59% ahead of Vadodara (87.63%), Navsari (85.41%), Anand (85.29%), Bharuch (85.17%), and the Dangs (84.96%). In all, 15 districts have registered figures higher than the national average.
The Dangs has posted the highest jump in overall female literacy rate of 20.24% followed by Banaskantha (18.18%), Kheda (17.87 %), Dohad (17.74%), Narmada (17.01%), Anand (15.82%), Patan (15.67%), Valsad (15.34%) and Panch Mahals (15%). In fact, 16 districts in the state have registered higher decadal increase in female literacy than the state average of 12.93%.
The leaders in highest decadal increase in female literacy for rural areas are Kheda (20.25%), Dohad (19.19%), Banaskantha (18.86%), Narmada (18.64%), and the Dangs (18.04%). In all, 12 districts have registered higher increase than the state average of 14.57%. Similarly, the leaders in highest decadal increase in female literacy for urban areas are Anand (10.99%), Valsad (9.73%), Kachchh (9.06%), Patan (8.64%), Banaskantha (8.52%) and Surat (7.96%)
Tribal districts have registered a remarkable growth in female literacy indices. In fact, the tribal areas recorded a phenomenal 14.92% increase in rural female literacy and 8.16% urban female literacy as against the 14.57% and 7.58% at the state-level. The performance in the tribal districts on the female literacy front has been spectacular, both in the urban and the rural areas in the last decade.
The significant enhancement in female literacy indicators for rural and urban areas is fairly distributed across the state and not confined to any region. The state of female literacy in Gujarat has been very encouraging in the last decade. The rural and urban areas have shown similar increase in female literates in the past decade, which is truly noteworthy.
A prima facie inference is that a large proportion of children born after 2001 are becoming literate.
— The author is director, census operations, Gujarat
