Bias against girl child education continues in Himachal: Census

SHIMLA: Though the literate population of Himachal Pradesh as per the 2011 Census figures has gone up from 76.48 per cent in 2001 to 83.78 per cent and from 67.42 per cent to 76.60 in the case of women during this period, the bias against educating the girl child as compared to the male child still persists in the state, the Census figures reveal.
While the percentage of literacy amongst the male population was 90.83 per cent it is 76.60 per cent in the case of women.There seems to be no marked improvement in the percentage taking into consideration the fact that the difference in the literacy rate between men and women was 22.99 per cent in 1971, 21.73 in 1981, 23.23 in 1991, 17.93 in 2001 and 14.23 in the current census.
Though the director, Census, Balbir Tegta listed it as a big jump in the literacy rate of women, skeptics here felt that an increase of just 8.5 per cent in 40 years does not speak much of a state, which has repeatedly portraying itself to be the number two state in the country, after Kerala, in literacy and is talking in terms of universalizing primary education and has even been given national awards in the filed of education.
Despite that some of the districts like Chamba, which have a large rural segment in the hinterlands, the female literacy rate has shown a jump of 13.29 per cent having gone up from 48.85 in 2001 to 62.14 per cent in 2011 and Sirmaur where the increase was 12.18 per cent from 60.37 to 72.55 per cent, but the overall increase has hovered about eight per cent in other districts, which does not justify the publicity being given to achieving the status of the most literate state in the country in the next couple of years.
However, improvement in the sex ratio from 968 in 2001 to 974 in 2011, indicates that the efforts that have been out in by the state government to curb female foeticide, by banning gender tests of foetus and implementing other legislations to deter the practice of aborting the female foetus have shown results. It is heartening to note that the sex ratio in the 0-6 years age group, which was 896 in 2001 has shown a quantum jump to 906 in the current census, indicating that there is still scope for improving it further.
But the fact that the three leading districts of the state which have a better female to male population - Hamirpur, Kangra and Mandi – have continued to maintain this position indicate that the tendency for a having a male child has not really become profane here. The disturbing trend has been noticed in Kinnaur where the sex ration has gone down from 857 in 2001 to 818 in the present census.
The population in the state has been put at 68,56,509 of which 34,73,892 are males and 33,82,617 females and accounts for 0.57 per cent of the total population of the country which has been put at 1.21 billion. Incidentally, this population also includes the large number of Tibetans who have taken refuge in the state, besides the migratory Nepali and Bihari labourers who come to the state in fairly large numbers to work in the apple orchards and the number of hydel power projects coming up.
While all the districts of the state, barring the tribal Lahaul and Spiti district have shown an increase in the population ranging from eight to 16 per cent, Lahaul and Spitui has shown a fall of 5.10 per cent. However, Tegta was of the view that the fall recorded in the population of the district could be due to the fact that there had been a fairly large migration to other districts and this was also noticed in the substantial increase in population in those districts.