Bangalore added most illiterates in 10 yrs

BANGALORE: There’s a curiousfailure tucked away in Karnataka’s impressive 8.97% jump in literacy rateover the past decade. While the rest of the state saw the number of illiteratescoming down in the past 10 years, their number went up in Bangalore and Yadgirdistricts.Between 2001 and 2011, their number shot up by 8,447 inBangalore, contributing negatively to the decadal decrease in illiterates.Yadgir, Karnataka’s youngest and least literate district, added 2,397illiterates in the same period."The decadal decrease in number of illiterates is around 19.87 lakh. Bangalore and Yadgir contributed negatively by adding more illiterates. The fluctuation in figures could be due to death among illiterates, migration and also illiterates picking up how to read and write over the decade," said T K Anil Kumar, director, census operations (Karnataka).According to Census 2011 Provisional Population Totals for Karnataka, Bangalore is the only district to add both male (3,625) and female (4,822) illiterates in the past decade. While the number of male illiterates came down by 8,713, the youngest district added 11,110 female illiterates between 2001-11. Bangalore’s pace of population growth at 46.68%, primarily spurred by migration, is seen as the key reason behind the illiteracy aberration. "In the past decade, Bangalore has attracted a huge floating population mainly unskilled labourers from other parts of Karnataka and other states. In Yadgir’s case, it is difficult to pinpoint a single reason as it’s a newly carved-out district and did not figure in the 2001 Census," says A S Seetharamu, education consultant with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan-Karnataka.The maximum dip in the number of illiterates camefrom Belgaum, where it fell by 1,97,572 - nearly 10% of the total decrease inilliterates.